Ill EHil 



I tifi 



■ ■ 



■ H inlWi B HB' 
UififflflRUBfi 



^HM 



SfSffiaJa 



mm 



m 



1 



mm 



HU1II KHD SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



MlBwMlinHflHKfflHinHSflnMB 

HBflffiBinnMnHWBUUWWBM 



ggg§§ 



ikbbsb 
HffitB 



HBHfflDy 






III 



I ' IISiUiBilRl 



WtiXHffi 

IH 



mm 



mm 



■van 



\mm 



g 



™ 



IHffi 

H 



I 






■ 






ffi 



n 



ffifllBl 



fflflffi 



m 



m 



mm 



vm 



WEHffl 
iff 



ramnen 



i 

1 



MSI 



1 



■HBMiBnHiniimM gnin i 
BMm HH iiifuiiifitaHnt aiim 

HiMHHitfHnTnniiiiffMn"™ 

BOIaaPtm 

111 w im n MTninnTlnTMTmMmTmln 



I 



JH 

Bffl 



■HP 8 



Jan 
Hi 1 
!IHB 
"Hi 



II 

■ 



■ 

BHuBBRDai 



mRM itSiufilBHlUlli 
mSSm 

■ 

■ 



■■Hi 

tSfSHlHmSluii 

tBBSBBm 
HiBil 

BBHf 
imrafiSjniBmBf 
ifflC nu BnMHimW ffli 

■fiBHHHn 
Wm WmMmM 

I BunnDt mm ummEw 



1 

I 



■ 

I 



mm 



I 









IS 



H 

1 



m 



m 



I IWJlBinf 

BJUftttuwL 
jflfloBil 

IHI 
fflnHBL 

H 



131 



Ml 



IS 



l ^?})U m m,r 









m-S: ?S,jJ. 



























i;ro b \ 



!»«%>' # 



,N\? 



PRESENTED BY 



Pu^'sHcT 













/" 









« kM- M $* to^ :M fe ,<V :UjH& 



1 ^v^^ 






S^^^^sS 









*£m 












THK CONTINUITY 



-OF- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



Being Thoughts from the Realms of Each, 



By those who Dwell in Each. 






OTTUMWA, IOWA : 

PUBLISHED FOR I. N. MAST. 

1892. 



^ff&M 



p. 

Publ 

28l»yW 



(Dedication. 



To the joyous soul of her who was once my 
^wife, whose love was, as woman's love when cher- 
ished, ever is, limited alone by her power to love ; 
and whose devotion was, as woman's devotion, 
treasured and reciprocated, ever must he, equaled 
by no other attribute of her being: to that soul 
as it exists revealed to my soul, through a power 
which was a mystery to us in our united human lives, 
and which became conscious truth to us, in our 
spiritual lives, severed but briefly by her death, 
and now forever reunited, this work is lovingly 
dedicated. 



THE CONTINUITY 



OF 



Human and Spiritual Life. 



CHAPTER I. 

It is now nearly twenty years since I was 
first made conscious of the existence of a 
power, which is not generally understood. The 
few who have knowledge of it fail to compre- 
hend it. This was my experience until within 
recent years; indeed not until within very re- 
cent years have I been able to fully satisfy my- 
self of its nature. It is because I am at last 
clear in my own understanding of it that I now 
assume to lay before all who may have a de- 
sire to seek such knowledge, the facts which 
have finally forced conviction of certain truths 
upon my mind, believing that they will tend 
to increase the happiness of those who accept 
them, as they have added to my own. It is not 
for gain, or for my own personal pleasure that 



6 THE CONTINUITY OF 

I do this, for I neither seek the former, nor 
do I expect to derive from it any pleasure out- 
side of that which the thought shall bring to 
me that I may be instrumental in bestowing a. 
hope, where none now exists, and in strength- 
ening hopes that do exist. In such pleasure 
lies my reward. The fact that not a human, 
being other than my wife, is at this writing, 
cognizant of the continued exercise of this 
power by me, or of that which I have received 
through it, is sufficient evidence, that were I 
to follow my own inclinations and my nature, 
that which is now made public, would have 
forever remained private. Such was my desire, 
and this was my purpose until the question was- 
presented to my mind after this manner. 
Has the knowledge derived from your life's^ 
experience increased or diminished your 
temporal and your spiritual happiness? Has. 
there been anything unusual in that exper- 
ience? Is it possible that all could safely at- 
tempt, or attempting could acquire this same 
knowledge which your experience has given to 
you? If it be true that temporal and spiritual 
happiness has come to you through a source 
not open to all, and that that which aided you 
might likewise aid others, what right have you; 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 7 

to let your experience die with you? The 
manner in which you acquired spiritual under- 
standing in whatever degree you now possess 
it, was not usual. The source of such knowl- 
edge which should be sufficient for all was 
not sufficient for you. Is it possible that there 
are others for whom it is likewise insufficient, 
to whom your experience might also be the 
one thing still lacking? 

Such thoughts ever present with me, have 
within the last few years forced upon my mind 
a conviction of duty, which admits of but one 
response, which is a public declaration of that 
which has been heretofore hidden, in the spirit- 
ual experiences of my life. The personal his- 
tory of my life is involved, much to my re- 
gret, and nothing whatever, short of this sense 
of positive duty would induce me to make 
many references to it which I have found nec- 
essary to make. I make this general statement 
that it need not be repeated with each of such 
references. If that which is written in this 
book were all, then many of these references 
would not be required; but this book itself is 
but the preface of that which is to follow, in 
some manner and at some time, and without 
which it w r ould be of but little value. 



8 THE CONTINUITY OF 

To whom could I so appropriately dedicate 
this work, as to the soul who has so joyously 
aided me in its preparation, and how could I 
more certainly perpetuate the memory of her 
virtues, among those who knew her on earth, 
than to make of an especially prepared edition 
of this volume, a memorial to her? Through 
it she speaks, not the somber thoughts of death 
and earthly decay, but the happy thoughts of 
a present life with me. Death was to us a 
physical separation, and a brief spiritual sep- 
aration, then death was conquered by knowl- 
edge. To erect over her remains the polished 
shaft, or chiseled marble, is discordant with 
my thoughts of death; to do what I now do is 
in unison with them, and is my own free choice 
of tributes to her worth which none could 
know as I knew it. 

By birth I was endowed with two prominent 
traits of character. A dread of death greater 
than that which is the common inheritance of 
all, and a tendency to disbelieve everything 
which is not conscious knowledge. The former 
was founded largely upon the uncertainties 
which follow death, and upon my inability to 
believe in any continued existence thereafter, 
because of such existence I could have no con- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 9 

scious knowledge. Upon such a foundation 
my spiritual experiences were built. At the 
age of about ten years I entered into a revival 
season, or protracted effort, in a country church 
where our family worshiped. That was the be- 
ginning of serious thought on my part con- 
cerning the requirements of a religious life. 

It was the first time these questions had 
been brought to my attention in such a man- 
ner as to require present action. It was truth- 
fully asserted by my religious instructors that 
there was a necessity for a change of heart, 
called Conversion, or Experimental Religion. 
The truth thus expressed was thereupon illus- 
trated as follows. Such change is the forgiv- 
ness of all sin, both that which is inborn and 
that which has been committed; it is instan- 
taneous, distinct, and of it the soul can have 
no doubt; it is accompanied with exuberant, if 
not ecstatic joy; therefore until you feel this 
change and experience this joy, you are lost. 
These thoughts once accepted and fixed, I was 
said to be under conviction, and was prepared 
for the next step which was urged upon me, 
which was that I should publicly declare this 
conviction, and my desire for conversion by 
presenting myself at the altar of the church 



1° THE CONTINUITY OF 

for prayer. 1 was a child in years without ex- 
perience, and without the power to think or 
reason for myself concerning these great truths, 
yet even this much appeared plain to me; that, 
if there was a' spiritual existence after death, 
it was reasonable that such existence must 
be either happy, or unhappy, by reason of 
that which was done or left undone in human 
life; therefore I must seek to fulfill the condi- 
tions necessary to spiritual happiness. Here 
was a purpose and a reason for it which then 
inspired my young heart. To this point I had 
been led as all should be led, by a desire for a 
better life, inspired by a presentation of spir- 
itual truths which were accepted by me, at 
least in hope. 

Thereafter came the error which my life so 
forcibly illustrates, the knowledge of which 
leads me now to declare it in language that 
cannot be pronounced uncertain. My instruc- 
tions how to fulfill these conditions were in 
substance, "Repent and believe." Of what 
should I repent and upon whom should I be- 
lieve? This was the answer that came to me 
from those who believed that they were voicing 
the revealed truth of Divine Love. This was the 
presentation of that love to my childish mind. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 1* 

You are a sinner because sin is born in youp 
your every breath is polluted with inbred sin, 
because sin is your natural state, and from it 
you cannot escape. Had you died while yet 
unaccountable, all this inborn and natural sin 
would have been pardoned by virtue of the 
Atonement, but having reached accountability, 
it cannot now be pardoned, save through your 
repentence; hence the child who dies is for- 
ever saved, but no such mercy ever reaches one 
who knows his sin and repents not of it. 

Besides this inbred sin your life is one of 
unpardoned sin. Your daily life is filled with 
it, and even sleeping you escape it not. For 
all these sins you are now subject to God's 
anger which is kindled against you because of 
them, and burneth like unto the fierceness of 
raging fire. God's anger burneth, for so it is 
revealed to us by his Holy Word. Because of 
.his great anger he has created Hell. What is 
this place called Hell? It is the place of pun- 
ishment for those who sin, and die without re- 
pentence and forgiveness. It is a place, for so 
saith the Scriptures, where the smoke of their 
torment shall ascend forever and forever. 
Whether literally true or figuratively true, it 
is a burning lake of molten brimstone, a rag- 



12 THE CONTINUITY OF 

ing sea of flame and smoke wherein are cast 
the souls of all who die accountable and un- 
forgiven. For such this punishment is de- 
creed, and of it they are forewarned. Why this 
torment should never end, we know not, but 
it is as certainly everlasting, as it is certain 
that it exists. Into such torment, whether lit- 
eral or figurative, you will certainly pass by 
death if you are not forgiven, for death alone, 
stands between you and it. Your life may be 
cut off this very night and your doom be for- 
ever sealed. If such should be your lot neither 
tongue can express nor mind conceive the state 
of your eternal torment, because it has been 
created by Omnipotent Power wielded in fierce 
anger. Fire indeed describes it yet fire con- 
sumes, and the soul is not consumed, for its 
torments are everlasting. It therefore follows 
most reasonably that this torment is such that 
the finite mind of man cannot conceive it; but 
whether literal or figurative the meaning is 
the same. Into it you will as surely pass as 
that death overtakes you unprepared. Will 
you delay another moment now that escape is 
offered you? This may be your last oppor- 
tunity, to-morrow may be too late. 

He who can resist such appeals after he has 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



13 



been prepared for them as I was prepared has 
no desire for a better life; and I a startled, 
bewildered, terrified child was led to the altar 
of that church where, in the midst of a surging, 
wailing, praying, singing, and shouting assem- 
bly, I sought to realize Divine Love. 

That which was done in ignorance, I forgive, 
yet it is certain that a greater wrong could not 
have been done me than to have thus mis- 
guided me in my childish ignorance. This 
scene was not for one night only, but for many, 
for again the same argument and the same op- 
portunity led to the same result. Let me here 
record the fact, that as memory recalls my life 
back to the hour when memory ceases, at the 
period of which I write I had never wilfully 
done a wrongful act towards God or man or 
brute, without sincere repentance for it, as 
soon as it was done. This I knew then, as I 
knew my own desire and purpose so to con- 
tinue; yet I was in a labyrinth of spiritual 
misconceptions from which I could not escape 
and from which there was no one to lead me. 
At last I was told that my sincere desire was 
repentance, and that I was no doubt forgiven 
and upon this I based a hope and ceased the 
struggle. 



14 THE CONTINUITY OF 

That meeting closed and it was regarded as 
a great revival of true religion, and such it was 
for the few who have no higher conception 
of their Creator's attributes than was portrayed 
therein. There were not many such then, and 
there are fewer now. For the good it did those 
few I commend it, but for the harm 1 believe 
it did the many, of whom I know I was one, I 
condemn it. 

During the next thirty years of my life that 
hope neither left me nor was any assurance 
added to it, for it was in the mature years of 
middle life that it first became conscious knowl- 
edge. That was a life wholly barren of spirit- 
ual enjoyment, and equally barren of spiritual 
understanding. When in mature life I sought 
confirmation of the hope and greater spiritual 
understanding through human reason it only 
led me into greater doubts and into deeper 
error. For as I reasoned I was limited to my 
own observations and experience, and to 
the observations and experience of others, 
which I might accept, but which I of necessity 
received in the light of my own, for the 
premises upon which to base conclusions; such 
premises seemed to support but one conclusion, 
,and all my efforts at reasoning led me to this 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 15 

conclusion, as the rays of solar light lead to 
the sun. It would present itself as the result 
of every analogy drawn from the natural world. 
It was in harmony with my own doubting 
nature. It was not refuted by my own ex- 
perience, and inasmuch as this had failed to 
refute, it tended to confirm it. All nature, 
all logic, all philosophy, to me seemed to 
unite in one declaration, which was, that "Of 
man's existence death is the end." If this was 
true, then it seemed to follow as a logical 
sequence that there was no other existence 
above the life of man. That meant not only 
infidelity but atheism, from the thought of 
which I shrank as from that which destroyed 
all hope. 

I never relinquished the hope that both were 
false, and a wish and prayer for knowledge 
concerning spiritual life was united with my 
every thought of it. What was my belief then? 
This is a difficult question for me to answer 
even at this day. It is nearest the truth to 
say that I had no belief. I had many hopes, 
but no beliefs. I hoped that there was a fu- 
ture life as distinct in self-consciousness as 
this; that there was an All-wise Creator who 
ruled by his Omnipotence, and ruled in Love; 



16 THE CONTINUITY OF 

that the human personage, Christ Jesus, was 
the Son of God and a revelation of the Father's 
Love; that belief on Him was sufficient to 
cancel sin, in some manner to me inexplicable. 
I hoped that J did thus believe and that my 
sins were thereby cancelled. All these things 
I hoped, not one of them had I power to pos- 
atively believe. Into such a spiritual state I 
had been led and from it there seemed no es- 
cape for me. It was this state of mind that 
had led me to seek a confirmation of my hopes 
through the power of reason. 

In this state of uncertainty and doubt, in 
the year 1870, I watched the soul of one I loved 
depart from its mortal body, so far as it lies 
within the power of the human senses to dis- 
cern the separation. It is not often that such 
phenomena are accompanied by any assurance 
of a future life. In this case there was that 
which to many minds would be such an assur- 
ance; but to confirm this statement would re- 
quire much more of the details concerning it 
than I purpose giving in this connection. It 
is only to trace its effect upon my own life 
and the ultimate results traceable to it that I 
now refer to it. The record of it is public. 
The truth as I now understand it is this. That 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 17 

soul approached death desirous of leaving to 
those he loved most, some evidence of truths 
he had already accepted, to-wit, the continuity 
of spiritual with human life, the painlessness 
of physical death, and the nearness of the spir- 
itual state of existence to the human. With 
this firm desire, and with a clear understand- 
ing, the moments of dissolution to him con- 
sciously approached. By the power of its own 
will, for this purpose alone, his soul clung to 
its human existence. It lest human conscious- 
ness, and gained spiritual consciousness; then 
it lost spiritual consciousness and regained hu- 
man consciousness, and in this state narrated 
what its spiritual consciousness had revealed 
to it. The joy of this possibility, led to the 
second mighty effort of the soul's spiritual will, 
and once more, spiritual consciousness was 
exchanged for human consciousness, and again 
that which spiritual consiousness had revealed 
was given through human consciousness by 
audible voice, clearly and distinctly to those 
about him. Here was a revelation that few 
ever are privileged to have. I was rejoiced 
but not satisfied. Hope sprang up anew with- 
in me, and with it a new hope never before 
entertained. As I now understand my thoughts 



18 THE CONTINUITY OF 

then, that new hope was, that the soul in its 
human life possessed some power or sense, by 
which it could consciously know of the exis- 
tence of the spiritual life. My fondest hope 
reached not then beyond the consciousness of 
this one truth. The thought was new to me. 
It was attractive as it always must be to those 
who pursue it. I determined to follow it to 
some conclusion. At that time I was just en- 
tering professional life and was scarcely yet 
free from college training during which no time 
was at my command for anything outside of 
the college curriculum. 1 was therefore ignor- 
ant of the subject, thus brought to my attention. 
This ignorance was now to be changed to 
knowledge, and I determined to take the 
shortest road to it which seemed available. I 
knew that Spiritualists claimed this very power 
that I now hoped for. Up to this time 1 had 
had no belief whatever in its existence and 
had been disposed to decry it as imposture or 
hallucination. To determine what was the 
foundation of their claim, and what the evi- 
dences to sustain it, was my first object, and 
to this I gave my study. That it was unpopu- 
lar I very well knew. That it cost me the loss 
of some friends and gave to others much un- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 19 

easiness I also knew. He who gives himself 
up to an}' line of research is not likely to be 
deterred by such consequences, and I was not. 
Had I at any time accepted the teachings of 
Spiritualists as a body, the conscience and the 
judgment of but one person would have guided 
me in declaring it, and that person would have 
been myself. I never at any time accepted 
their teachings, as those who followed me in 
these writings will understand. The time has 
now come for me to declare that which would 
have been improperly declared sooner; neither 
am I now governed by any conscience or any 
judgment but my own in this matter. With 
this digression I take up the history of my 
work. 

Its beginning is the experience which I have 
narrated. My next thought was, is it not pos- 
sible that I may communicate with the soul 
which seemed to possess such power over its 
own physical being, and if this was possible, 
how was it to be accomplished. To gain light 
upon these points I turned to modern Spiritual- 
ism, and that I might do so intelligently I be- 
gan with its history and likewise read its cur- 
rent literature. From this great field I gleaned 
a few thoughts which served me well in after 



20 THE CONTINUITY OF 

life There is in modern Spiritualism a truth, 
which is not understood even by its votaries. 
It is a truth which it is impossible to under- 
stand until many other truths have first been 
learned and accepted. In ignorance of this 
truth I pursued my investigations into its mys- 
teries. Had I then realized what I now know, 
I should never have done what I have dene; 
not that it was sinful for me, doing it as I did, 
but because that which I hazarded, few dare 
hazard. The fact that I have escaped the 
most enchanting of all evils and am enabled 
to review the hazard from this side the danger, 
impels me to utter this warning before I enter 
upon a recital of my experience. If I were to 
declare the truth which is essential to a com- 
prehension of the hazard, it would not be be- 
lieved. It must be learned as I learned it. 

When I had gained the knowledge which the 
historic and current literature of Spiritualism 
can give, I then sought by association with its 
votaries, that further knowledge which was in 
no other way obtainable. I mingled with them 
as if one of them. The secrets of mediumship 
were laid open for my study. In darkness, in 
dim light, and in the light of day ; among those 
of whose honesty I had not the slightest doubt,. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 21 

and among those of whose dishonesty I was 
equally as certain; among those whose motives 
were pure and lofty, and among those whose 
motives were base and sordid; among the 
learned and the polite, and among the ignorant 
and the rude; from whomsoever, and from 
wherever I could gather knowledge, there I 
gleaned it One of my earliest experiences 
was most valuable to me. The thought of it 
is not pleasant, but the lesson was never for- 
gotten. A company of which I was one, sat 
for physical phenomena. My position was be- 
side a leg of the table at which we sat. No 
response rewarded our effort, The accidental 
pressure of my foot against this leg of the table 
caused a sharp snap, or click, loud enough to 
be heard throughout the room. It was hailed 
as a signal of victory. It was repeated as often 
as seemed necessary to sustain the delusion. 
Then began that which was an unsought, yet 
a valuable experience to me. The company 
became elated with success. They talked to 
and importuned this table-leg as if it was a 
living presence among them. This far I led 
them in a spirit of jocular amusement, when 
to my surprise a gentleman among the com- 
pany, and one of rare culture and attainments, 



22 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



called for the spirit of his dear friend John, 
and a nervous twitch of my foot brought the 
quick response that his friend John was there. 
The great loving heart of this man was made 
happy by the thought of the presence of this 
spirit thus manifested, and eagerly sought in- 
formation of such nature as could be given re- 
sponsively, by one, two, or three raps, and with 
it he was satisfied. It startled me to witness 
such credulity. That which I had begun ir> 
jest had ended in serious deception. 

Should I undo the wrong I had done? This 
I could not do and continue in the same man- 
ner my pursuit of knowledge. I hesitated until 
it was too late, and if any of that company 
should see this statement it will give them 
their first knowledge of the source of that even- 
ing's phenomena. This act of deception I do 
not justify; it was not right then and would 
not be right now, but by it I measured the ex- 
tent of human credulity, as by no other meas- 
ure would it have been possible, and was 
placed upon my guard for myself ever after- 
wards. 

Broader opportunities presented themselves, 
and were eagerly embraced by me. Claimed 
materializations of forms and features, received 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 23 

my most careful attention. To such media I 
paid tribute, where tribute seemed to promise 
knowledge. I watched in the dim light of 
darkened rooms for familiar faces which never 
came, and which it is impossible should ever 
come. I listened for familiar voices which can 
never again be heard by human ears. I saw 
many faces and heard many voices but of a 
spirit I never saw the face or heard the voice. 
For this it is now clear to me is an impossi- 
bility. I next sought media who claim to de- 
velop physical phenomena in darkened rooms. 
The phenomena were produced; the source of 
them I care not to seek, for I know it was not 
spiritual. Above these there is a higher class, 
and below them one still lower. The higher 
is the mental or spiritual test medium and the 
inspirational or trance speaker. Whatever 
spiritual truth is to be developed by spiritual- 
ism will be developed through such media. 
Below all others of claimed mediumship is that 
of the impostor who deceives for the money 
that can be made through the deception. These 
have long since become the curse of that which 
they may eventually destroy. These investi- 
gations occupied more than four years, and 
their result was a feeling that there was a mys- 



24 THE CONTINUITY OF 

tery surrounding the subject which I could not 
solve; a depth to it I could not fathom. I 
recognized a principle, but it was hidden from 
my understanding; a semblance of truth with- 
out the evidence necessary to fix sustained be- 
lief. To this feeling I had added the know- 
ledge that there are few who can resist the 
desire for spiritual communication, when that 
desire once becomes fixed within them, and 
because of this fact it is very difficult to either 
resist deception or give proper weight to that 
which is communicated, where there' is no de- 
ception. I then first began to see the dangers 
which surround this truth, but I did not then 
see them in the same light or attribute them to 
the same causes that I afterward comprehended. 
Could I then have known what I now know 
I would have gone no further unless I could 
have then also known the result of that risk. 
In this conviction I am so firmly settled that 
no soul shall ever through my advice, under- 
take to accomplish what I have accomplished. 
At this point I was strenuously opposed in these 
investigations by my wife, and as the result 
of this opposition I entered into a compact 
with her and with her devoted friend, then our 
guest, that if they two would earnestly and 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 25 

fairly, in our own home, assist me for one hour 
during each of three successive evenings, and 
we failed to develop any phenomena, I would 
then desist. Under this agreement the first 
hour was spent without any results. The sec- 
ond came and passed as the first had done. 
The third came and had been so far spent that 
I expected nothing; neither of the others had 
expected to receive anything from the begin- 
ning, therefore that which was received was a 
surprise to all. It was a physical phenomenon 
distinct enough to be unmistakable. I had 
now their interest, and had overcome their op- 
position, though neither finally accepted that 
which came from this source, as worthy of an}' 
credence. The fourth evening we were still 
more successful and to the same phenomenon 
was added an indication of associated intelli- 
gence. 

The fifth evening that intelligence was man- 
ifested unmistakably, but what it was, or from 
whence, none of us formed an}' opinion. This 
was upon the evening of November 16th 1874, 
and from that day to this hour I have never 
given opportunity, under similar conditions for 
this class of communications, to be given to me, 
that I have not received them. For years it 



26 THE CONTINUITY OF 

required the assistance of at least one other 
person, in order that I might receive anything. 
This condition was finally overcome and since, 
it has lain wholly within my own power, 
whether I should receive such thoughts, or 
shut them out. They cannot be given to me 
without the concurrence of my own will and 
over my will I retain as perfect control as in 
any of the affairs of human experience. Upon 
the evening named I first became conscious of 
thoughts that were not my own thoughts. It 
was as if I heard that which was spoken, yet 
it came without any audible voice or sound. 
I could not receive it readily, but only in a 
very imperfect manner, and sometimes would 
fail entirely to catch an entire thought of which 
I got a part. It was slow and tedious and 
sometimes so indistinct as to become both tire- 
some and annoying. I would desist at will 
and would resume at will. I thus learned that 
I had perfect control over my own will and that 
so far as my experience seemed to indicate, my 
will was the controlling will. When assured 
of this I ceased to fear a power that I other- 
wise would have feared. I was conscious that 
thoughts came to me from some source other 
than my own conscious mental efforts. Of that 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 27 

source I was then in doubt. My favorite theory 
was that they sprang from the unconscious 
action of my own mind; another was that they 
were the result of the unconscious action of 
some other mind in human life, upon my own. 
It required years for me to finally dismiss both 
these theories as not tenable. It was the logic 
of little things that finally destroyed them. 
Little surprises of such a nature, and under 
such circumstances that seemed impossible of 
explanation by either theory. This logic of 
little things was destined to play a still more 
important part in my acceptance of still 
stranger truths. 

Those who have followed me thus far will 
ask what these communications were. I have 
recorded those I thought worthy of record from 
the very beginning. They are voluminous and 
many of them have never received a second 
thought from me while others have been care- 
fully studied. I append a very few selections 
from them to this volume, to be used hereafter 
in illustrating a truth. These are the highest 
thoughts I then received. They are not like 
the thoughts I now receive because the souls 
who gave them are not like the soul which now 
gives thought to me, almost exclusively. They 



28 THE CONTINUITY OF 

were the highest I was then capable of receiv- 
ing. For several years I have received no 
thoughts from the source from whence these 
came, neither do I care to do so again. These 
extracts given purported to come from two 
sources, and that the two were different I was 
conscious. For more than ten years these two 
sources of thought were as distinct and well 
defined to my spiritual consciousness, as were 
any two sources of thought to my human con- 
sciousness. It was as when familiar friends 
meet and converse, with each other, that I re- 
ceived them and exchanged thoughts with them 
throughout these years. They came always 
under the same name and with the same indi- 
viduality, the latter being as marked as are dis- 
tinctive mental characteristics in human ex- 
istence. I learned to love these two charac- 
ters, and many were the happy hours that their 
thoughts were my companions. It was restful 
to me after the strain of business cares to thus 
spend an hour. Outside the hours thus spent 
I gave the subject but little attention. While 
these two characters represented the highest 
plane of thought then open to me, they were 
by no means all that I was familiar with. The 
other types of individuality with which during 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 29 

these years I was familiar, were so distinctly 
marked that no person in my position could 
fail to recognize that individuality. It was 
always the same and was always accompanied 
by the same designated name. Neither the in- 
dividuality nor the name changed during all 
this period. Fom the evening of my first 
communication until my final separation 
from them some of these individualities were 
with me continuously at every opportun- 
ity. This fact is clear to me now as I review 
that period of my life, and it is just as clear 
to me now that none of these same individual- 
ities continue to exchange thoughts with me, 
The reason for this belongs not to this chapter. 

In the calm review of my strange experience, 
upon which I now so fondly dwell, I never re- 
call this period without feelings of profound 
gratitude, kindred to those of personal love, 
towards these individualities, be they what, or 
whom, one or many, even yet to me unknown. 
To their designated names, I did not then nor 
do I now attach any importance, or give any 
weight, whatever. Death will alone reveal to 
me what it is best I should not know before. 

The friend to whom I also owe so much of 
gratitude, in love a very sister to my wife, 



30 THE CONTINUITY OF 

finally left our home to return to her own. The 
power still remained with me, but at first 
neither so clear nor so strong as before her 
departure. These differences soon vanished 
and with the assistance of my wife alone, we 
continued to exercise it at will during her life. 
Her disbelief in it as coming from a spiritual 
source, was pronounced and unchangeable, after 
the first few weeks that we exercised it. Our 
friend shared this disbelief with her, and the 
cause of it in both was the utterly unreliable 
nature of the statements made through it. Un- 
til experience had shown this to be the fact, 
we all inclined to accept it as being all that it 
purported to be. While the falseness of the 
statements destroyed belief in them, it put me 
on my guard and left me with a hope. So pos- 
itive was I in this position that nothing that 
came to me through it during all these years, 
influenced me in my judgment to any extent 
whatever; neither did I ever relinquish the 
hope that it was an expression of spiritual 
thought. It remained for later years to show 
me the reason, and the necessity for these. de- 
ceptions. 

The experiences of the first few months also 
showed me that I was posssesed of and was 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 31 

handling a most dangerous power. For myself 
my distrust, my caution, and my doubt seemed 
to me to make it safe; my wife disbelieved it 
wholly and in this disbelief, she was likewise 
safe; and in the presence of all others I there- 
after ceased to use it and to a very few ever 
mentioned it. 

The death to which I have referred had given 
to me a hope; that hope had now been par- 
tially realized and here it rested for years with- 
out further change. All that these years had 
given to me or were to give to me was a con- 
sciousness of either one or many sources of 
thought outside of my own mind, with the added 
hope, amounting to almost if not full belief 
that this source or these sources were spiritual 
in their nature, This seemed to be as far as it 
was possible for me to go. Beyond this point 
all was still dark. 

It was in 1884 that the earnest words of a 
powerful intellect convinced me that in the 
words, "To him that overcometh will I give to 
eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a 
white stone, and in the stone a new name 
written, whicli no man knoweth saving he that 
receiveth it," there lay a truth that was to me 
hidden. That there was in the christian life 



32 THE CONTINUITY OF 

something that I had never known. This 
thought was not new, but it was presented with 
such convincing argument that I felt assured 
that there was an experience that I had never 
known. With the same determination with 
which I have set about all my undertakings in 
life I now sought the truth the existence of 
which these words implied. 

The result of all my investigations, which had 
preceded this were summed up in a declara- 
tion like this. I am now satisfied beyond a 
reasonable doubt, that there is intelligent ex- 
istence outside of human life. What that in- 
telligence is, whence it came, or what its des- 
tiny, I know not, but that it exists I do know. 
This admitted all that is declared concerning 
the. future life by the^ Word of God, seems 
reasonable, more reasonable than the opposite 
of these declarations. Therefore I will accept 
and believe that which is declared concerning 
that existence, in so far as I can understand 
it, and 1 will seek to understand that concern- 
ing it which now seems incomprehensible. To 
this determination the hope to which I have 
referred had now brought me. Since it had 
been so strangely implanted in me it had never 
left me, neither had it been satisfactorily 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



33 



Tealized, A very star of hope it had guided 
me, and I had followed it, until at last it rested 
over the manger where the infant Redeemer 
lay and now I knew that it was to me the 
Star of Bethlehem. Sheltered by the same roof 
that gave shelter to the dumb brutes about 
him, the Magi found Jesus the Son of God and 
worshiped him. 

Amid like surroundings in the stillness of 
the night, with no human soul to aid or wit- 
ness the struggle of my soul for spiritual light, 
I first realized that truth, no longer hidden. 
Under the humble roof that sheltered the dumb 
brutes for which I cared, I had at last over- 
come, and there was given to me the hidden 
manna, and I did eat, and the white stone and 
in it a new name written, and that name I 
knew then for the first time in all my life, for 
it is the name above all otner names, and 
known only to them to whom it is revealed. It 
was in this hour in the year 1884, that I 
emerged from that labyrinth of spiritual mis- 
conceptions into which I had been led in 1854. 
Towards this result the power concerning which 
1 now write contributed nothing except the 
one truth, that there is intelligent existence 
■other than human. Without belief in this truth 



34 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



I could not have overcome. Without the aid 
of this power I could not have accepted this 
truth as a matter of belief; it must have re- 
mained at most a hope, and possibly even that 
hope would have left me. The power through 
which this hope was changed into belief, was 
latent within me and was only aroused into 
activity, through influences which owed their 
existence to the death which I have described. 
I can conceive of nothing else from which in- 
fluences so powerful and so lasting could have 
had an origin. It is thus that I trace the 
sweetest joy of my existence to a death which 
seemed to me and to all untimely; and the con- 
viction is forced upon me as I ponder this one 
truth, and the events that cover a span of but 
little more than a score of years, that we are 
the children of a loving Father, who orders 
with infinite wisdom the little and the great 
events of our lives, and who by every power 
that is possible to our human nature, seeks 
to reveal Himself to us. If such be the im- 
pression that comes from the review of one 
short period of one human life, shall it not be 
revealed, as very truth, when with broadened 
comprehension throughout an endless exis- 
tence, we review all of human life and physi- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 35 

cal existence? It is to such revealed truth, 
from souls who possess now that of which I can 
only dream, that I have listened and listen still, 
through the sweet silent voices which come 
to me as human voices come to others, voices 
hushed by death to human ears, but awakened 
through death to spiritual consciousness. 

It then appeared to me that I had gotten 
from this power all the good that it was possi- 
ble for it ever to bestow upon me, and I should 
have dropped it perhaps forever, had it not 
been for another change which death brought. 
It was in the quiet of an autumn evening that 
another soul was almost free from its human 
temple, and I knew it not. This time it was 
the one of all on earth the nearest and the 
dearest. Of this truth my first knowledge was 
the words which fell from the lips of one 
whose heart and skill had joined in the at- 
tempt to prolong that life, and they were, "Mr. 
Mast be brave; your wife is dying." This was 
the first warning of approaching death and the 
announcement that its work was well nigh 
done. The record of those few moments of 
consciousness yet remaining is sacred to those 
to whom it of right belongs, and nothing but 
a sense of duty prompts this reference to it. 



36 THE CONTINUITY OF 

My last request, "If it be possible remain with 
•us, stay close to us after death, " was answered 
■clearly and distinctly, "I will;" and these 
words were the last her lips had power to 
utter. In this hour of my sorrow my thoughts 
again turned to a possible hope. It was not 
a belief, it was scarcely a hope, but it was the 
incentive to attempt once more the solution 
of a mystery which had defied my every at- 
tempt to solve it. Up to this period unaided 
and alone I had never been able to recognize 
any thought as coming to me outside of my 
own mental effort. I was now without the help 
of any of whom I would ask assistance. My 
first effort therefore was turned to the develop- 
ment of this power so that I might be able 
-without assistance to accomplish that which 
I had before done only with assistance. Guided 
by my former experience, I now pursued this 
task. By slow degrees I succeeded. Then 
there came to me again all the old individual- 
ities, and talked with me as in years gone by, 
giving me no new thoughts, no new truths, no 
light, this much and nothing more. Patiently 
through weeks I waited, until weeks length- 
ened into months, before the soul whose 
thoughts I sought was revealed to me even in 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



37 



doubt. The doubt grew stronger as time went 
on, for there was between us as yet a gulf im- 
passable. From this side that gulf I could get 
anything, from beyond it, nothing. There is 
a truth that bridges that gulf, but of that truth 
I was then ignorant. Had I not recognized 
that truth, then the soul I sought would never 
have been revealed to my soul until death had 
revealed both to me. Could I grasp that truth? 
Thoughts of it had come to me; glimpses of 
it had come through the experiences of the 
years then past, but these were not sufficient. 
The hour of my life now approached for which 
all these experiences of my life had been given 
me, for which my nature had been created, for 
which life itself had been bestowed on me. 
The record of the next three days must remain 
forever unwritten and unspoken, but at mid- 
night of the third, alone and in my own cham- 
ber, the soul I sought was revealed to my soul, 
the gulf that separated us was bridged. At 
that hour there came to me the first ray of light 
to illuminate the darkness of the mystery of 
all that had gone before. It took many days, 
even weeks and months, to fix this truth firmly 
in my mind. But having climbed a mountain 
to the summit it is easy to descend upon the 



38 THE CONTINUITY OF 

other side. When I had so far recognized this 
truth, and had of my own free will brought 
myself within it, then there came a new reve- 
lation of many things which had gone before 
bu. which had never been understood. At that 
hour I started in the A, B, C, of this philoso- 
phy, and since then I have gathered know- 
ledge as knowledge can alone be acquired, 
little by little, step by step, thought by thought. 
Then I did not recognize the consequences of 
my own decision, neither is it possible for me 
yet to measure it, but I have gone far enough 
to clearly see that if it had been different from 
what it was, the uncertainty, disbelief and 
doubt which had always enveloped this subject 
could never have been removed; neither could 
I have ever received any satisfactory assurance 
that one thought received through this spirit- 
ual sense, was from the soul which alone I was 
seeking. This is but the smallest part of that 
which hung upon the determined exercise of 
my own will power when the final trial of that 
power was upon me. From that hour begins 
all that is beautiful or comforting in the pos- 
session and use of this developed spiritual 
sense. Before, it entertained for the passing 
hour, by its oddity and the variety of the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 39 

thoughts it gave; since, it has become a com- 
fort in my hours of rest, besides which there 
can be none other greater, save one, which is 
the conscious knowledge of our Creator's 
love, revealed through an unfaltering belief 
in and the full acceptance of the Divine One, 
who is and ever was the Son. That knowledge 
I gained after I had sought it thirty years, and 
before I gained this knowledge, and since I 
have gained this, there has never come to me 
through it, one thought that has lessened the com- 
fort of the former; but there have come to me 
many thoughts which confirm and sustain it as 
truth sustains truth. The hour of which I speak 
marked nothing more plainly than it did a 
transition from one plane of thought to an- 
other. The latter was no more beautiful in its 
expression, than was the former. It was no 
more clearly given. Its thoughts were no more 
persuasively mingled with and sustained by 
thoughts that were within my own human 
comprehension than were the thoughts from 
the other plane, yet the difference was not the 
less plainly discernible to my mind than is 
the difference between light and darkness dis- 
cen.ible to the human eye. The former pro- 
fessed love and affection, the latter professed 



40 THE CONTINUITY OF 

no more in words, but what it did profess was: 
manifested through every thought, manifested 
even without the profession of it. The former 
was the cold philosophy of Hell, more blight- 
ing yet than is the philosophy of earth, be- 
cause sustained by the consciousness of con- 
tinued existence, and the added weight of new 
experiences. The other is the philosophy of 
Heaven, which philosophy is love, and love: 
alone. Out of the one into the other I had 
safely passed, not by my own strength, for 
that failed me once, twice, and then I re- 
ceived strength that was not of earth. 

From that hour to this I have exchanged no 
thoughts with those intelligences that were 
my companions for so many years; not that I 
fear them or their philosophy, but I have no- 
hours to thus waste now that I know where I 
stand. A few times since then I have meas- 
ured strength with souls of a very low order, 
but it was only done to gain or illustrate a 
truth, and was then most reluctantly permit- 
ted. I am conscious that I now make state- 
ments that cannot be generally accepted; I 
neither expect it nor ask it. After years of 
study they may appear in a different light even 
to those who are the farthest from belief in. 
them now. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 41 

It would seem that the experiences I have 
now detailed, together with those I have had 
since the period of which I write, should re- 
lieve me from the charge of presumption in 
the expression of some opinions regarding 
claimed spiritual manifestations, and the 
teachings of Modern Spiritualism. Those who 
have accepted both will be neither moved nor 
disturbed by them; while those who have no 
opinions formed about either, may be benefited 
by them. I also purpose to be neither mis- 
represented nor misconstrued, if plain language 
spoken without reference to whom it may an- 
tagonize, can prevent this being done. On 
some subjects connected with these truths my 
own judgment is not yet fully settled, and on 
such I remain silent. I have seen and heard 
and felt substantially all that any other person 
has seen or heard or felt, of physical phenom- 
ena called spiritual, and I know as clearly as 
I can know any spiritual truth, that nothing 
which I have ever experienced of physical 
phenomena was a manifestation of spiritual 
existence; and if it was not a manifestation 
of it then it was no proof of such existence. 

That disembodied spirits may exert an in- 
fluence over sensative persons, called media, I 



42 THE CONTINUITY OF 

admit, but the influence is wholly spiritual and 
is exerted upon the spiritual nature of the 
medium, either consciously, or unconsciously, 
and as such it cannot manifest anything beyond 
the medium's own volition, either consciously 
or unconsciously exerted. There is a power 
wholly spiritual, which spiritual intelligences 
may exert over human beings. It can only be 
exerted by the concurrence of the will of the 
human being unless the human will becomes 
so weakened that it cannot resist another will 
and I believe this to be impossible unless the 
human will has been destroyed wholly or par- 
tially as the result of physical disease. 

In the power of the human will was man 
created in the image of his Creator; this is 
his God-like attribute, and the allied powers 
of the spirit world cannot overcome it. Sub- 
ject to this restraint there may be control by 
spiritual beings over sensative persons, and 
through such control thoughts may be ex- 
pressed. Such control is common, therefore 
much that purports to be thoughts from the 
spiritual world is such; subject however to 
this qualification. No spiritual intelligence, 
in the expression of its thoughts, can rise 
above the human intelligence which it controls. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 43 

It is limited by the human power of concep- 
tion, and the human vocabulary of the person 
controlled, and it cannot get beyond either. 
In this fact we find a reason for the peculiar 
style which so frequently marks the spiritual 
communciation, whether it be oral or written, 
given in trance or in normal condition. It is 
the attempt of the human powers to adapt the 
thought and the style of its expression to a 
plane of life which is conceived to be vastly 
above the plane of human life. Hence we 
have the effort to portray an ecstatic existence, 
by words of poetic fancy, and with the flower 
of rhetoric, which so often becomes ridiculous, 
in its attempted sublimity. The question of 
the source of these communications troubled 
me for many years. What I have said above 
bears upon this question, and I need not re- 
peat it. Spiritual intelligences recognizing 
no law other than their own wills communicate 
eagerly at every opportunity. They are in 
spiritual life as they were in human life, wor- 
shipers of no power other than their own wills; 
they know no law other than the law of ne- 
cessity — the limit which is placed upon their 
powers, and this alone they obe3'. This is not 
true of those whose thoughts would elevate 



44 THE CONTINUITY OF 

the human race, and bring true comfort to the 
human heart. The truth that lies behind this 
thought need not be more plainly spoken. 
The fact has been made clear to me that the 
source of almost all these communications is 
evil. Such was the source of every word which 
appears in the appendix to this volume, and 
by the light of what is there written, you may 
interpret this statement. If I was not entirely 
satisfied that I have safely passed through that 
which is evil in spiritualism, and have reached 
a plane which is above the evil which weighs 
it down, I would never give to any human be- 
ing the opportunity through me to accept what 
I believe, for the opportunity might lead to 
deception, and to willfully deceive a soul I rec- 
ognize to be sin. It is because I have satis- 
fied myself from my own experience, that there 
is a possibility of good coming out of even 
the evil that there is in it; that a soul, labor- 
ing as I did through the better part of my 
life, against doubts and disbelief, can be aided 
by it; and that it is a power within which lies 
the possibility of reaching those who are per- 
fect in spiritual existence, and that by me this 
possibility has been at last attained, of all of 
which I am now happily conscious, that I as- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 45 

.-sume the responsibility of giving to all who 
seek it, that which has been given to me. I 
cannot do this without making statements so 
strong and so clear that none may misunder- 
stand them. It is for this reason that I have 
warned against that which I believe to be 
evil, and that I have not and will not urge the 
acceptance of what I believe to be true. I give 
what I have received, as I have received it, 
saying to each and all who read it, to you have 
been given intellectual powers, the same as to 
me, if by the use of these powers you can ac- 
cept that which I have accepted, in whole or 
in part, or can accept still more than 1 have 
accepted, then in such belief I shall hope to 
be instrumental in bestowing happiness upon 
you. If by the use of your intellectual powers 
you cannot accept any truth which I have 
affirmed or shall hereafter affirm, then reject 
it unhesitatingly and forever. He who accepts 
by a less positive assurance than this is no 
wiser than the friend 1 have mentioned, to 
whom the creaking of a table leg was satisfac- 
tory and sufficient evidence of the presence of 
the spiritual intelligence of his departed 
friend. 

When my own personal experiences, wheth- 



46 THE CONTINUITY OF 

er* physical, mental or spiritual are described, 
either in this chapter or in that which will 
follow it, they are given in language as clearly 
expressive of the exact truth, as I have power 
to command. If my experience shall be of 
any value to any souT^having similar doubts 
and unbelief and shall aid it in arriving at a 
clearer understanding of spiritual truth, then 
shall I feel repaid for all the labor which falls 
upon me. 

When I first began these investigations I 
was wholly unprepared to receive and to rec- 
ognize spiritual truth. I could not realize 
this then, but I fully realize it now. If that 
which I now firmly believe to be truth, and 
which I so believe because of the sanction of 
my reason, had been then presented to me, I 
should have rejected it unhesitatingly, and, 
without an effort to have comprehended it. 
To the acceptance of such truths I have been 
led unconsciously, by slow degrees. I can now 
recall many things which were steps towards 
these truths, which I could not at the time un- 
derstand the reason for; and, I even thought 
myself unnecessarily and purposely deceived 
and annoyed. As I review the slow process of 
acquiring spiritual understanding in my own 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 47 

case, I feel that I have been led by a power 
that is Omnipotent, by a wisdom that is Di- 
vine, and by a love that is Eternal; and as 
certainly as I feel this do I also feel that the 
Being who possesses these attributes, never has 
known, and never will know anger, towards 
any creature upon whom He has bestowed the 
inestimable gift of conscious existence. An- 
ger is human, love is Divine. Can it be 
doubted that my early teaching made the road 
to this knowledge both long and difficult? And 
yet until I had reached this knowledge I could 
not accept spiritual truth to the extent that 
was required of me in order that it might be 
satisfying. This truth so simple and now so 
plain to me, I give only as a sample of that 
which must be gradually acquired. 

If any one thinks that it would lessen his 
spiritual happiness to thus believe, let such 
a one drop this subject, and these thoughts 
here. 

Spiritual understanding is not the same in 
its nature as physical understanding. In the 
latter there are many truths which are clearly 
perceived; there are some which must be ac- 
cepted through belief, but this belief is always 
founded upon the actual perception of some 



48 THE CONTINUITY OF 

other human intelligence in whom we have 
the confidence necessary for belief. It there- 
fore follows that every physical truth known 
to the human intellect either has been or is 
perceived by some one person. All that comes 
not within this limit, is simply conjecture. 
Spiritual understanding is not governed by the 
same rule. There are some spiritual truths 
which no intelligence below the Uncreated 
One can perceive; there are some which are 
alone within the limit of perception of the 
highest created intelligences; there are some 
which are within the limit of perception of 
each degree of intelligence, below the highest 
but not within the power of those next lower; 
and this is true until the lowest degree of hu- 
man intelligence is reached. Therefore all 
spiritual truth cannot be perceived by any 
created intelligence, and by the lowest the 
very simplest of all can be perceived. While 
this is true of spiritual perception, it is not 
true of spiritual belief, for that power is lim- 
ited alone by the revelation of spiritual truth 
to the individual intelligence. There is no 
spiritual truth which may not be believed by 
every intelligence to whom it is revealed, al- 
though its perception is an impossibility to 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



49 



such intelligence. How then can the human 
intelligence be led to believe a truth which it 
has not the power to perceive? In one way 
only and that is by the use of a figure, a sym- 
bol, or a thought, which is to the truth itself 
that which the shadow is to the object which 
casts it. For as the shadow resembles and is 
dependent upon the object which casts it, so 
the figure, the symbol, the thought, fore- 
shadows the truth which lies behind it. 
It is in this manner that spiritual truth has 
•ever been taught to man, for in this way alone 
has it been possible to teach him such truth. 
Then as the power to comprehend the truth 
increases, the figure, the symbol, and the 
thought, which foreshadowed it, change their 
significance. They have served their purpose 
to that intelligence, and are left behind; neith- 
er disputed nor denied, their value and their 
purpose is simply recognized. 

It is thus that spiritual understanding ad- 
vances step by step towards the source from 
whence it was given. If the same truth was 
expressed to the lower intelligence in the lan- 
guage which expresses it to the higher, then 
the lower would forever reject the truth, be- 
cause it is beyond its power of comprehension; 



50 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



but expressed within the limits of its compre- 
hension, it accepts and believes within such 
limits. It is upon this reasoning that I ex- 
press this truth which would be paradoxical 
except as thus explained. With a wisdom 
which is Divine and a love which is Eternal 
has our Creator bestowed upon man the power 
to believe that which it is impossible for him 
to perceive, and has withheld from him the 
power to perceive that which it is impossible 
for him to believe; and adapting his revela- 
tions to these limitations has taught to human? 
intelligence spiritual truths through figures,, 
and symbols and thoughts, which are their 
shadows. This thought is here given as an 
explanation of the matter which is contained 
in this volume. It is in itself of small im- 
portance and of little significance, but as a 
foundation upon which to build it is as essen- 
tial for all as it was for me. Its purpose 
reaches not beyond a preparation of the minds- 
of those who read it for that which in some 
manner and at some time will follow it. 
Should these words of mine and that which is. 
written in this volume, lead any soul to seek 
the substance that casts the shadows which 
have heretofore satisfied its longings for spir- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 51 

itual understanding, of such soul I am the ser- 
vant, to bestow upon it what 1 have received, 
in the manner that I now understand that 
it is alone possible to receive it, and to do 
this will be the pleasure of my remaining 
years. 

From my earliest recollection my strongest 
desire has been for knowledge concerning the 
state of mankind after death. I can speak for 
no other person, but I believe that this desire 
is universal. That it is given to man as an 
incentive leading him to seek spiritual truth 
is evident when we consider that this is its 
natural effect. 

He who does not care to know concerning 
that state, does not care to know spiritual 
truth, but he who desires such knowledge is 
led directly to seek spiritual truth. Such 
truth can be learned through revelation, which 
is the only source, and the sufficient source 
which has been given to mankind for the as- 
certainment of it. 

The source through which I sought to learn 
the fact of spiritual existence, is not outside 
of revelation, for revelation recognizes it and 
warns concerning it. But this one fact may 
be learned without belief in revelation ; for of 



52 THE CONTINUITY OF 

the continued conscious existence of the hu- 
man soul after death, it may by an exercise of 
its spiritual powers on earth, acquire knowl- 
edge to the satisfaction of its own conscious- 
ness. The knowledge of this fact does not 
constitute spiritual understanding of the state 
of that soul after death, and the only source 
of such understanding is revelation; there- 
fore it is true that revelation is the only 
source through which it is possible to acquire 
spiritual truth. If this be true the question 
is naturally presented for answer why I pursue 
the course of study and investigation which I 
have now pursued so many years, and to an- 
swer this requires that I give my own concep- 
tion of what Spiritualism and the forces allied 
with it are. It is not to excuse my course in 
the eyes of those who believe it sinful to 
countenance or participate in its phenomena, 
nor to establish favor with those who believe 
in such phenomena and in the teachings re- 
ceived through them, that I record my own 
convictions on this subject. I shall not be sus- 
tained by either of these classes. One truth I 
have finally learned through human experience ; 
it is that the person or the thought which 
stands in the way of the selfish desires of the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 53 

human heart will not be spared the most un- 
reasonable censure. When the largest measure 
of human sympathy and chaste affection which 
it is possible to bestow upon our fellow be- 
ings fails to atone for that which is weak or 
inconsiderate in our daily lives, it would be 
foolish to expect to escape criticism and de- 
nunciation from those to whom these views 
are repugnant. I have been taught this lesson 
by the experiences of my life, and never did 
I understand it more clearly than at this hour. 
I will therefore declare my convictions in so 
far as they are settled at this date (March, 
28-1892) without reference to whom they may 
please or antagonize. 

There is a truth in modern Spiritualism, 
which lies at the foundation of all that is 
genuine of its phenomena. That truth is, that 
it is possible for a soul that is no longer in 
human existence to impress its thoughts upon 
a soul which is still in human existence, un- 
der conditions which are possible to some, 
and are not common to all. The power through 
which this is done is possessed alike by all. 
It is one of the powers of the human soul 
which is created with it, but which ordinarilly 
remains dormant during hnman life, and 



54 THE CONTINUITY OF 

is only developed by the necessity for it which 
death brings. In some persons from different 
causes this power becomes active prior to 
death, through a partial development of it. 
In no person can it be as fully developed as it 
will be after death, because the human condi- 
tions which now limit the soul necessarily 
limit the exercise of this power. Through 
this power alone comes every thought which 
is given to the human soul from a spiritual or- 
igin. Primarily it is not a part of or 
dependent upon physical phenomena, and 
no physical phenomenon ever was or ever will 
be produced, which is not dependent upon the 
laws of physical existence. Whatever influ- 
ence spiritual intelligence has upon these laws 
whereby physical phenomena may be produced, 
is necessarily exerted through a human will, 
either consciously or unconsciously to that 
will. I have seen many physical phenomena; 
I have read of many others which I have not 
had the privilege of seeing; I have witnessed 
and have heard that which convinced those- 
who were determined not to believe; yet I 
have never seen or heard anything that indi- 
cates to my mind a possibility that spiritual 
existence can manifest itself to human exist 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 55 

-ence through any other than this one power. 
Such is my judgment based upon my own ex- 
perience, but behind this judgment and sus- 
taining it is the knowledge of a spiritual law, 
so clearly defined and so plain, when once re- 
vealed, that no soul which comprehends it can 
doubt this truth. 

This being my conviction as to what Spirit- 
ualism is, I answer why I continue to use it. 
This spiritual power or sense was developed 
in me through my intense desire for that 
^knowledge which it brings to the soul. Hav- 
ing once developed it 1 at first found in it a 
source cf amusement, a congenial and attract 
ive subject for thought and a mystery which 
seemed impenetrable. Then came those ex- 
periences which revealed to me a higher possi- 
bility than I had yet dreamed of, which was, 
that that which is revealed concerning spirit- 
ual existence, might be better understood by a 
study of that existence. The power was now 
mine, the opportunity for such study was with- 
in my reach, my belief in the truth and the 
purpose of revelation was now fixed, and while 
it was satisfying to me then it might become 
more so by this means, and that it should 
never be made less so, I was fully determined. 



56 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



It was with this feeling that I entered upon 1 
this latter period of my research. I now re- 
view the work of six years, and by my own 
experience I measure the possible good it may 
do others, whose feelings are what mine then 
were. 

I had then accepted every cardinal tenet of 
the Christian belief. What I could not under- 
stand I accepted and believed because it was 
declared in what I accepted as, and believe to 
be, Divine revelation. There were many truths 
which I could not understand. What is sin? 
Whence came it, and for what purpose was it 
permitted to desolate the earth? What was 
the first estate of the human soul on earth, 
and what was its fall? What and from whence 
the temptation which led to the fall, and what 
were the results of it upon human existence? 
How did the Almighty communicate with his 
creatures then, and what was the promise giv- 
en them? What was the effect of that prom- 
ise upon the human race? Was there a neces- 
sity that the Son of God should come to earth, 
and what the necessity that he should die? 
What is redemption from sin, and what is the 
pardon of sin which is realized on earth? 
These and many other questions present them- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 57 

selves to every one who accepts them as truths 
and no human intellect may presume to say 
that it understands them all. Let not such a 
claim ever be imputed to me from anything I 
have said or may say, but I do say that many 
things connected with these and similar ques- 
tions, which six years ago were very dimly 
perceived, have become plain and simple 
truths, beautiful because recognized as truths, 
and thrice beautiful because of their simplici- 
ty. Should any whose belief is fixed as mine 
was, choose to follow the thoughts which have 
made that belief doubly firm, I shall hope 
that they shall receive the same good from it 
that I have received. If those who are now 
without hope, through a recital of my expe- 
rience shall have a hope begotten within them, 
that their life is the gift of a loving Crea- 
tor, and is everlasting: and if those within 
whom such hope now dwells, shall have it 
strengthened, and fixed, then will I be satis- 
fied. But besides this I shall hope that that 
which I have written and shall write may lead 
many to a clearer understanding of the soul's 
human and spiritual existence and may con- 
firm in all the belief that that existence is 
continuous, without lapse of consciousness at 
death. 



58 THE CONTINUITY OF 

When these thoughts come to my mind in 
connection with the thought of what this pow- 
er was given to me for, I am compelled to 
answer myself thus; to yourself it was a ne- 
cessity, serving you when nothing else could 
have taken its place; as it served you it may 
serve others; the talent that was hid in a nap- 
kin was a curse to him to whom it was given; 
if you hide this talent may it not curse you 
likewise? It may be that I err in taking this 
step, but if it be error it bears so strongly 
the semblance of duty, that this semblance 
will I hope excuse the error, even in the eyes 
of those who will be disposed to criticise the 
most unsparingly. I have not thought of pleas- 
ing any associated body of thinking people. 
This is impossible, for what this work will 
contain will differ in many things from the 
beliefs of all such, and will harmonize in 
many things with such beliefs. The soul that 
can derive comfort from all that will be given, 
lives not on earth, but the soul that can de- 
rive no comfort from any part of it, is lost to 
all comfort. This I say not in reference to 
this volume, but in reference to that which 
will follow it. 

In conclusion I now invite those who desire 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 59 

to learn more of that which has come to me 
through the experiences which I have related, 
to make that fact known to me. Whatever 
the race or condition of the soul which seeks 
such knowledge, and from wherever such re- 
quests may come they shall receive such at- 
tention as the circumstances may permit. 
Whatever I can do to aid any human being to 
gain that which I vainly sought through so 
many years, it is my duty, my privilege, and 
my pleasure to do. To the performance of 
this duty I shall give my best thought, and 
such of my time and means as shall appear to 
be required of me. With feelings of gratitude 
to Our Father who gave us being, and whose 
love is witheld from none whether tney 
worship Him in knowledge, or den)'' Him in 
ignorance, I am 

Faithfully Yours 

OTTUMWA, IOWA, I. N. MAST. 



CHAPTER II 

The hope that inspires the human soul that 
it shall live after death is implanted in it by 
its Creator. To possess that hope is therefore 
the natural state of the soul, and its absence 
indicates an abnormal state. It is largely the 
purpose of this volume to prepare the minds 
of those to whom this hope is wanting, to ac- 
cept it once more and to thereby restore them- 
selves to the normal spiritual state in which 
they were created. To do this work is the 
first step towards that which is impossible 
without this having been first done. What 
reason have I to hope that my thoughts should 
be effective in doing that which human thought 
has failed to do? The preceding chapter is 
a recital of what human thought can do, and 
of what it is powerless to do. It is truth 
spoken from experience, and learned because 
of that experience. He that could have the 
same experience, would learn the same truths, 
but without that they can not be learned by 
60 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 61 

each for himself. I will therefore ask those 
who follow my thoughts on this subject to ac- 
cept his experience as narrated by him, as 
both truthfully and accurately expressed; then 
I will endeavor to lead all those who are sub- 
ject to the same doubts and want of belief 
which he describes into the same positive as- 
surances and comforting beliefs which are now 
his. To do this is not impossible, nor would 
it be even difficult, were I able to give to all 
the same assurances of my personal identity 
and spiritual existence, that I am able to give 
to the one soul to whom I speak these words. 
This is an impossibility. In this one partic- 
ular therefore I am dependent upon belief in 
his integrity, and upon a proper use by each of 
his own intellectual powers. I ask both from 
all who desire knowledge concerning that 
which is so difficult of human comprehension. 
Without the former I may even yet succeed, 
without the latter success is impossible. That 
either should be withheld seems contrary to 
human nature, where the purpose is so clearly 
manifested as is the purpose of this work. To 
serve the human race is an inspiration of my 
present existence, and to that end all my pow- 
ers which are incident to that .existence are 



62 THE CONTINUITY OF 

now directed. After years of argument and 
teaching by methods that are known to no 
other soul, I have prevailed with this one, 
and will now have his willing assistence. With- 
out this I was powerless, with it I have the 
belief that the labor into which I have led 
him will not be unrewarded. 

The source of all spiritual understanding I 
now declare to be revelation from God. 
That revelation is recorded in God's Word. 
It is as plainly written therein as it is possi- 
ble for it to be comprehended by the human 
mind when taken as a whole. It is however 
true that human intellects differ in their power 
to comprehend revelation, and therefore in 
their power to acquire spiritual understanding. 
The wording of revelation is for all ages and 
for all degrees of comprehension, from that 
of the weakest, to that of the most brilliant 
intellect. It is therefore not reasonable that 
he of brilliant intellect should cavil about the 
form of expression and the wording of that 
which is alike intended for him and for his 
brother, whose intellectual powers are but a 
shadow of his ©wn. Could human wisdom de- 
vise a record which would suffice for these ex- 
tremes of intellectual powers? Think of this 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 63 

until your answer satisfies your better judg- 
ment, then answer yourself this question. 
Through the historic ages of man on earth has 
not this record remained unchanged, and has 
it not in all these ages, comforted men of the 
highest and of the lowest intellectual power? 
Were such men in their wisdom deceived, or 
were the ignorant alone deceived? If the 
former then how is it that this record is ca- 
pable of deceiving the greatest intellects of 
all ages? Can your philosophy answer these 
questions satisfactorily to yourself? If it does 
not and despite this you still have doubts con™ 
cerning the revelation contained in God's 
Word, then I ask you that you follow with 
me a line of thought to its conclusion. If your 
philosophy satisfies you that there is no reve- 
lation of the existence and of the nature of 
God contained in the record called His Word, 
then I as earnestly ask you to do the same 
thing. This is the class of human souls which 
above all others I earnestly seek to benefit. 
Their danger is the greatest, and as their dan- 
ger is, so will their joy be if they escape it. 
The soul through whom I give these thoughts 
joins me in a longing desire to aid those to 
whom I now appeal, which desire is the out- 



64 THE CONTINUITY OF 

growth of his own bitter experience. This in- 
vitation is not limited to such, however, for 
the whole human race is one in the love which 
makes us brethren, when once that love is 
known, and no soul however humble or igno- 
rant shall ever ask knowledge, which it is rea- 
sonably possible to bestow, without our earnest 
effort to satisfy it. 

The line of thought by which I shall hope 
to influence those I have solicited is not strict- 
ly logical. All minds are not subject to the 
same influences, and I shall seek to interest 
and influence the largest number; therefore 
none can be wholly pleased or even interested 
in all that I purpose saying, but I shall say 
nothing which is not designed to benefit some 
one. 

Again I will affirm that which has been stat- 
ed by another, that the thought which is pre- 
sented in this volume is not complete in itself. 
It will carry no one forward to a conclusion. 
It is preparatory for thoughts that are broader 
and deeper than are these thoughts, and in 
that light alone is it to be judged. The 
thoughts which it will contain were all given 
to the soul through whom I now speak be- 
tween the dates of April 18th, 1886 and Sep- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 65 

tember 5th, 1886. They were written out in de- 
tail by him and are now condensed from that 
manuscript. The purpose which they served 
him they must now serve others; that is to 
become the foundation upon which to build a 
superstructure of spiritual knowledge. To lay 
that foundation, broad and deep and strong, 
was for him the work of many years; neither 
can it be hastily accomplished by any one. 
With this general statement I now- ask those 
who would attain to a better understanding of 
the truths of spiritual existence to permit me 
to lead them in my own way, along devious 
and heretofore untrodden paths, to an elevated 
place, even to the summit of that which is 
within the grasp of human powers, from which 
summit the mists of human weakness alone 
obscure the truths of spiritual existence. 

To that height I have led one soul, and in 
the joy of the visions of transfigured truth, there 
received, he now abides. That joy in part is 
what I promise to all, who seek it as earnestly 
as he sought it, but in part only, for his ex- 
periences cannot be shared by any other, and 
it was through these alone that even the mist 
that hid my existence from him was rift. 

The first thought that I present as we start 



66 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



together in this search after spiritual knowl- 
edge, concerns the origin of the human race. 
Revelation declares that of his race Adam was 
the beginning. It does not declare that of the 
human race he was the beginning. Some men 
have declared this and have so construed rev- 
elation. This is human error. I speak that 
which I am now able to comprehend. The 
human race is not all of Adam's race. Not 
even ail who now live are of his race. Neither 
are those now upon the earth representatives 
of all the races, which have lived upon it. 

This declaration is sustained by natural 
revelation and is not controverted by Divine 
revelation. Neither is there found in one 
anything which is controverted by the other. 
It is man's ignorance of both which gives the 
appearance of conflict between them. There 
was of necessity a beginning to human life 
upon the earth. There was likewise of neces- 
sity a beginning to the spiritual responsibility 
of human beings on earth. It is not possible 
that the two should have been coeval. The 
one preceded the other by many ages or cycles 
of time. There is a law which governs all 
creation. It is the law of an existing necessity. 
There never was and never will be anything, 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 67 

either animate or inanimate, created, for the 
creation of which there did not exist at the 
time of its creation, a necessity. Therefore 
when the human race was created there existed 
some necessity for its creation. That necessi- 
ty is not apparent to human thought, but it is 
such that human thought may perceive it, and 
therefore I give it. It relates wholly to the 
welfare and happiness of those who are above 
the human race in the order of their existence, 
and because of this, is not apparent to human 
thought, unaided. The soul of man is the 
nearest to its Creator of all created intelli- 
gences, and it is at the same time the lowest 
of all created intelligences. Inversely as is 
the degree of intelligence so is the revelation 
of its Creator to that intelligence. It is im- 
possible that the highest created intelligence 
should know its Creator except through his 
manifestation of himself in his creation of 
those below it. Each creation is therefore a 
manifestation of the Uncreated Life, which is 
Our Father, God, to all that is superior to 
such creation. 

To sustain the belief and to protect the hap- 
piness of all intelligences superior to man, 
was man created. This was the necessity for, 



68 THE CONTINUITY OF 

and this was the result of man's creation. 
That all intelligences above man have not been 
constant in their worship of their Creator, is 
accepted revelation. The reasons for this 
truth are such as it is not possible to explain 
by a few words or in a concise form. The 
state of such intelligences can only be under- 
stood after many other simpler truths have been 
first accepted, and I do not attempt such de- 
scription now. It is sufficient to say that the 
causes which led to the fall of some superior 
creatures were of common application to all 
created intelligences, and to remove these 
causes was the necessity to meet which the 
human race was given existence; and that it 
should meet this necessity perfectly this new 
creation was from the lowest possible, upwards. 
Inanimate matter is the lowest possible form 
of creation; the lowest form of life is that 
which is next above this. Thereafter each 
succeeding step towards human intelligence 
declares more plainly than those which pre- 
ceeded it, the truths of Divine Existence, In- 
finite Wisdom, and Eternal Love. To super- 
ior intelligences this revelation was perfected 
in the creation of the human soul, to which 
was given freedom of will. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 69 

The source of knowledge and the law of 
knowledge are not different to the highest and 
to the lowest. Of all knowledge above that 
which is purely physical, revelation is the 
source, and a determined effort in seeking after 
it, is the law of its acquirement Therefore 
was this last and perfect revelation of the 
Creator to his creatures which are above the 
human soul, made in order that it should be 
thus acquired. There is no truth plainer than 
this to my mind now, but I can not hope to 
make it plain to those who have not the op- 
portunity, which death alone can give, to fully 
comprehend it. Therefore I leave this thought 
incomplete as it necessarily must be and de- 
clare that which I cannot substantiate by any 
proof other than this imperfectly expressed 
truth. It is that the human race was first 
created without moral responsibility. The 
soul was given to man in his earliest created 
state, but that soul was not charged with moral 
responsibility. Thus man lived through ages 
in a lower state than that which is now called 
human, of which period there is no record 
other than that which has been preserved by 
the physical creation. With that state of man 
I have nothing now to do, save to illustrate 



70 THE CONTINUITY OF 

the thought upon which I dwell, that it was 
one step in the revelation of the Creator to 
his creatures higher than human. The next 
step in this creation was that of the human 
race endowed with moral responsibility. This 
was Humanity made in the image of Divinity; 
human intelligence endowed with freedom of 
its own will and morally responsible for the 
result of that freedom. To the strength of 
man was added the love of woman, and this 
revelation of the Creator through his creation 
was finished, and therefore is it written that 
God looked upon the work of his creation and 
saw that it was good. There is nothing more 
that is possible to secure happiness to those 
creatures, which are superior to man than that 
which has now been accomplished, and the 
necessity for the creation of man, has been 
met by his creation. This necessity was as 
fully met without man's fall, as it was by it. 
Man's fall was therefore without any existing 
necesssity for it. That subject however I pass 
as not connected with my present thought. 
There is nothing which constitutes likeness to 
his Creator in the human physical form. 

That likeness lies in man's freedom of will 
and moral responsibility, and in this respect 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 71 

are all other intelligences above the human 
soul, likewise created in the likeness of their 
Creator. To each was given this likeness when 
it was created, and that likeness never has 
been and never will be taken away from any 
creature to whom it has been given. To de- 
prive any creature of its freedom of will and 
moral responsibility would be to deprive it of 
all happiness, for without both, happiness is 
an impossibility to any creature possessing in- 
tellectual powers. 

The purpose of this thought is to sustain 
the declaration which I now make, that it is 
possible for every creature whom God has 
made, to disobey the commands of God which 
are known to it and thereby fall, as the human 
race fell, and this possibility can never be 
taken from any creature to whom it has been 
given. It therefore follows that those who 
enter into the spiritual state which is the re- 
ward of obedience, may loose that which per- 
tains to it by disobedience. The converse of 
this is not however true, for it is not true that 
those who enter into that spiritual state which 
is the result of disobedience, can ever rise 
above that state by any possibility whatever. 
In this declaration lies a truth which I hope 



72 THE CONTINUITY OF 

to make plain, but in doing this I must first 
make plain another truth which is much more 
difficult. Plainly stated it is this, that no soul 
created or to be created ever has or ever will 
enter into either of the spiritual states named, 
without the free choice of its own will, and 
whenever opportunity or sufficient knowledge 
is not given on earth, that this choice may be 
made, then such soul must make such choice 
in a spiritual state. The spiritual state in 
which such choice is made needs no name or 
designation at this time. 

The word of God sufficiently indicates it 
without either distinctive description, or un- 
varying designation. I give you the thought 
now, that and nothing more. The development 
of it belongs not to this volume. 

Now returning to the state of primative man, 
I affirm that the human race prior to the crea- 
tion of Adam's race was not given the oppor- 
tunity or the knowledge necessary to make 
such choice. Moral responsibility and that 
which is inseparable therefrom began with 
Adam's race, and through Adam's race it was 
bestowed upon all other races then upon the 
earth, by the dissemination of the knowledge 
which this race possessed. This is kindred to* 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



73 



the thought above named, and belongs with 
it hereafter. I now assert another truth which 
it is not my purpose to sustain by any argu- 
ment at this time. Woman's creation was dis- 
tinctively another creation than man's, the re- 
sult of other necessities and the fulfillment of 
other purposes, from which the truth follows 
that woman is distinctively different in nature 
and endowments from man; and as God has 
created them so they must ever continue. "The 
intellectual powers of man, as a distinct crea- 
tion exceed the intellectual powers of woman, 
as another distinct creation. This does not 
mean that the intellectual powers of some wo- 
men, do not exceed the intellectual powers of 
most men, and in some cases may not exceed 
the intellectual powers of all men, but this 
truth is spoken of the two distinctive creations 
as such. Intellect was bestowed upon man 
that he might subdue Nature, discover her 
laws and utilize her forces. To do this re- 
quires intellectual power and physical strength, 
and they are his. It is woman's privilege to 
occupy a higher plane than that which these 
endowments give to man. Her creation was 
the next above man's and the next below God's 
creatures not human. To her has been given 



74 THE CONTINUITY OF 

endowments kindred to the powers of those 
not human, and which are not given to man. 
These powers belong to the higher life more 
distinctively than do any of the powers of man. 
When intellectual powers have fulfilled the 
purposes for which they were bestowed, they 
will be subject to that law which is univer- 
sal. Nothing survives the purpose for which 
it was created, or the purpose for which it was 
bestowed upon that which was created. The 
purpose once fulfilled, that through which the 
purpose was fulfilled becomes useless, and that 
for which there is no use, ceases to exist. The 
pursuit of the knowledge of nature and of natu- 
ral law, is limited to the physical world. Physical 
knowledge belongs not to spiritual existence. 
While spiritual knowledge is difficult to ac- 
quire in physical life, it is not impossible that 
it should be acquired, because the soul pos- 
sesses spiritual powers along with its physical; 
but in spiritual existence all physical powers 
cease. Therefore all intellectual powers which 
are dependent upon physical creation for their 
development, cease to grow, and having served 
the purpose for which they were bestowed, 
they pass away as that which is of no further 
use always does. What shall endure? That 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 75 

which pertains to spiritual understanding and 
spiritual experiences. The power to love, the 
power to worship, the power to enjoy that 
which is believed, as some would express it, 
"The comforts of faith." These powers which 
are the source of spiritual joy belong to wo- 
man as they do not belong to man, and through- 
out eternity woman will praise her Creator 
because she was created woman. The joys of 
spiritual existence are measured to woman not 
by the same measure by which they are meas- 
ured to man. Her creation is superior to man's 
creation, as the creation of the human race 
with moral responsibility is a superior creation 
to that of the human race not possessing moral 
responsibility. In contentment let woman ac- 
cept her creation and its endowment, in the 
belief that spiritual existence will reveal to 
her her superiority to that which is now so 
often her envy. The span of one short human 
life is not to be considered in comparison with 
that existence which is everlasting. In the 
one she is subject to that which is the out- 
growth of physical conditions, but in the other 
she is superior to that to which she is now 
subject. 

To the soul which is conscious on earth of 



76 THE CONTINUITY OF 

its Creator's existence, there has been given 
the greatest light, that it is possible should 
be given to it, in its present state. Conscious- 
ness of His existence is likewise consciousness 
of His love, for the one cannot exist without 
the other. That such consciousness is possible 
to the soul on earth, is a truth concerning 
which the mind of man is divided; those pos- 
sessing that consciousness, affirming this truth; 
and those possessing it not, either doubting or 
denying it. That which is knowledge to one 
soul, is unknown to another soul, although its 
intimate companion or occasional associate. 

Now wherein lies this difference between two 
such souls and how am I to explain the differ- 
ence. If I had the power to make this differ- 
ence plain to the human soul, then I would 
likewise have power to make equally plain to 
that soul, the difference between the spiritual 
state into which one soul enters at death, 
through belief in the revelations of God, and 
that spiritual state into which another soul 
enters at death, through disbelief in these 
same revelations. 

This same difference is that which separates 
these two states of the soul in spiritual exis- 
tence. The soul which through ignorance de- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 77 

nies the truth of this difference on earth, and 
so dies, will forever deny the same truth, in 
its spiritual existence. Such soul cannot there- 
fore by any possibility know the other spiritual 
state, for the power to gain this conscious 
knowledge has forever passed from it. Why 
this is true and how, it becomes to those in 
the other state a clear manifestation of our 
Creator's love, towards those who deny not 
only his love but his existence as well, be- 
longs not to this volume, yet this truth can be 
made plain to human understanding. There 
is therefore less difference between the spirit- 
ual states of the souls of the human race, in 
their spiritual existence than is generally 
taught, because that which is generally taught 
is in some degree a perversion of that which 
has been revealed concerning these states. 
That which on earth separates two such souls, 
the one knowing and the other not knowing 
God's existence and his love, becomes in 
very truth an impassable gulf between them 
in their spiritual existence. It is in no sense 
less a separation between them in their human 
existence, except that during that existence, 
this gulf is not impassable. No soul ever has 
been or ever will be created to which the op- 



78 THE CONTINUITY OF 

portunity and the power to acquire this knowl- 
edge, has not been given or will not be given. 
To those to whom it is given on earth it is 
final ; to those to whom this opportunity is not 
given on earth, it is given in spiritual exis- 
tence. To those who possess this conscious 
knowledge to which I refer it requires no ex- 
planation. To those who possess it not, it is 
most difficult of explanation. The age of the 
Adamic race is one unbroken record of the 
affirmative attestation of its existence, by those 
who possess it. The words "I know that my 
Redeemer liveth," have come unbidden from 
the consciousness of those who have possessed 
this knowledge, from the earliest record of 
man's thoughts. Spoken in the language of 
knowledge as above, or in the language of ig- 
norance, by those from whom greater light was 
withheld, this truth has been affirmed alike by 
the pagan, and by the worshiper of the living 
God. The light of the Pagan soul was not as 
great, and its expression of this truth has been 
according to its light, but the reward of the 
one is the reward of the other, the posssession 
of that knowledge which draws man towards 
his Creator. To those who possess not this 
knowledge the lack of it is willful. There has 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 79 

been no positive effort of the will to seek that 
concerning the existence of which they possess 
a doubt more or less distinctly defined. While 
the will has remained inactive the doubt has 
not, until with some it has become settled and 
fixed, as apart of the soul's mental or intellect- 
ual nature. Such a doubt assumes the mastery 
over the soul, and nothing short of a supreme 
and protracted effort of the human will can 
ever overcome it. The possibility of such effort 
continues while human life lasts, with it, it 
ceases. 

To one other class it is my privilege and my 
joy to address a few words, that they may not 
weary in the pursuit of that which is not re- 
vealed to them. Spiritual comprehension is 
not measured by intellectual comprehension, 
neither is intellectual comprehension measured 
by spiritual comprehension. The two are 
distinct, and each is independent of the other. 
Spiritual comprehension is graduated as is in- 
tellectual comprehension. The unlearned and 
untrained intellect cannot comprehend that 
which is above the plane of its existence in 
that state. Its state can however be raised 
step by step if not to the highest, yet to a 
high plane, and as it advances at each step it 



80 THE CONTINUITY OF 

will comprehend that which is brought within 
its powers. This truth will be accepted as 
such by all. 

Spiritual comprehension differs not from in- 
tellectual. It is within the power of the spirit- 
ually ignorant, to comprehend nothing above 
the rudiments of spiritual truth, and these rudi- 
ments themselves can only be taught to such 
soul by means of figures and symbols and 
thoughts which are not literally true. It there- 
fore follows that the spiritual conceptions of 
souls differ as widely as do their intellectual 
conceptions. As their conceptions differ so 
does their knowledge of God's existence and 
love differ. In one it is represented by a hope, 
mingled with doubts and fear. In another by 
a hope, without a doubt or a fear. In another 
hope has blossomed and borne its fruit, which 
is belief. And in still another belief has 
ripened into conscious knowledge. Blessed the 
soul to whom a hope is given although mingled 
with doubts and fears, for if that hope is cher- 
ished on earth, or in spiritual existence it will 
blossom and bring forth its ripened fruit. 

Twice blessed the soul whose hope is freed 
from doubt and fear, for to it ultimate knowl- 
edge is more nearly assured. Thrice blessed 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 81 

the soul in which belief is fixed, for whether 
realized on earth, or not till death reveals it, 
that belief will end in knowledge. To the 
soul to which conscious knowledge is given on 
earth. I can say nothing that can add to that 
joy, for to such has been given the hidden 
manna, and has been revealed the New Name. 
In my human life I possessed belief, without 
a doubt or fear; this and nothing more. Death 
revealed to me. that conscious knowledge, of 
which I now speak. Had it been otherwise, 
could I have given to those like me the con- 
solation of this truth? This reconciles me to 
the deprivation of the comfort of that knowl- 
edge in human life. Can the soul which recog- 
nizes this as truth, rest satisfied with belief 
alone? I have pointed out the source of that 
which I have called conscious knowledge, as 
being, first a hope of, then a belief in, the ex- 
istence and love of our Creator, and I have in 
substance affirmed that it cannot be reached 
through any other source. The continued ex- 
istence of the human soul after death, is no 
evidence of either to the soul which has neither 
this hope nor this belief. Both of these may 
be wholly lost to the soul while yet in earth, 
and without them it is an impossibility for 



82 THE CONTINUITY OF 

such soul to acquire this knowledge. The 
spiritual state of such soul is not changed by 
death. If it has in human life gone beyond 
the reach of even this one hope, it can never 
return to that hope in spiritual existence. If 
that hope remains through its human life, then 
there is a possibility, that this was all that it 
was possible for that soul to acquire outside 
of spiritual existence. Let this hope comfort 
those to whom it is the only source of comfort. 
There is required of no soul that of which it is 
incapable, but let every soul satisfy itself that 
it stops not short of this, for the measure of 
spiritual knowledge required of it, will be that 
which it was capable of acquiring in its human 
life. . 

This knowledge of which I speak is the 
source of all joy which is spiritual. Without 
it spiritual joy is impossible, and with it the 
absence of joy is equally impossible. 

The soul which hopes yet possesses not this- 
knowledge because of its inability to acquire 
it, enters spiritual existence prepared for no 
greater joy than the spiritual joy which it 
possessed in human life; neither can it have 
any greater joy until it has acquired greater 
knowledge. It may do this or it may not do> 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 83 

it. Its will controls it as it did in human 
life, and that will must make choice between 
the pursuit of that knowledge or the abandon- 
ment of the hope. Such spiritual state is 
neither that of those who possess this knowl- 
edge, nor yet of those from whom it is forever 
hidden. It is intermediate between the two, 
and from it either may be entered. The thought 
which I now wish to impress is that the joy of 
the soul which possesses this knowledge is not 
forced upon it, but is the result of the knowl- 
edge acquired, and that that joy begins when 
that knowledge is acquired, and exists in direct 
ratio of the spiritual comprehension embodied 
in that word knowledge; likewise that those 
from whom it is withheld either in earth or in 
spiritual existence, suffer its lack, not as a pun- 
ishment, but as a resulting necessity, insepara- 
ble from such lack of knowledge. 

By this thought I have conveyed to human 
understanding as clear an expression of what 
constitutes the joy of one spiritual state and 
the remorse of its opposite, as I am able to 
do, and have presented an outline, a simple 
foundation of truth, upon which is builded the 
Beautiful City of our God, and upon which 
is likewise founded its opposite, concerning 



84 THE CONTINUITY OF 

which I will sometime reluctantly speak. The 
difference between these spiritual states has 
been portrayed by figures and symbols, in words 
which sound harsh to human ears, and which 
I need not repeat here, but to the spiritual 
understanding of the soul which occupies the 
former, there is neither figure nor symbol, nor 
analogy, nor human language, which suffices to 
portray the removal of the one state from the 
other. 

Death never will reveal this truth to the soul 
which endureth that spiritual state into which 
joy enters not. This truth reveals to them in 
possession of this knowledge and its joy, the 
changeless love of our Creator towards his 
every creature. 

Death is the end of one existence. It is the 
beginning of another. I shall endeavor to lead 
you to a definite idea of both that which is and 
of that which is to be. 

As the soul is trained from the infancy of its 
human existence, so will its thoughts concern- 
ing its future existence be shapened. 

The circumstances of parentage and country 
give to them a likeness to those out of which 
they are formed. Therefore from as many 
divergent points as there are differences in cir- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 85 

cumstance and surroundings, must human souls 
start in their search after one and the same 
truth. Is it possible that they should all reach 
this truth? To all one common desire has been 
given, and it is founded upon one common be- 
lief. It is the desire to gain knowledge con- 
cerning the soul's future existence, founded 
upon the belief that there is such an existence. 
The result is that each distinctive set of sur- 
roundings and circumstances, shape the thoughts 
of the soul in this search, and lead to multi- 
tudinous conclusions as different as are the 
causes which develop them. The light which 
was given to man to guide him in this search, 
has not yet reached all peoples and those to 
whom it has been given have not alwa)'S fol- 
lowed it. Therefore no one thought concerning 
that existence would find an assent in every 
human soul. It is also probable that no one 
truth concerning it, could be uttered as human 
thought, without such truth receiving the as- 
sent of some human soul. From whence there- 
fore is the hope that should I present any num- 
ber of such truths, they would influence those 
to whom they come? It comes from this fact, 
that the presentation of a truth to a human 
soul; which has had no knowledge of or thought 



86 THE CONTINUITY OF 

concerning such truth, would be accepted by 
that soul more readily than would that be ac- 
cepted which is not truth; because truth is 
adapted to the wants of the soul and it in- 
stinctively inclines towards it. To many, the 
thoughts which I shall hereafter present will 
•come as entirely new; such will give them 
an impartial hearing and an unprejudiced judg- 
ment; others whose thoughts are now indefinite 
and uncertain, will give them consideration as 
those who are uncertain always do. Those who 
now believe themselves possessed of such posi 
tive knowledge, that they will consider no 
new thought, are the vast majority. Into this 
field I cast the seed, leaving the result to the 
will of Him who was revealed to me through 
belief in his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, 
through whose human life and spiritual exist- 
ence I glorify our Father who sent him. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



87 



CHAPTER III 

The life which man lives on earth is not 
different in itself from that which the soul 
lives after death. The two differ only in the 
conditions which surround them. To more 
plainly express it I will say, it is one and the 
same life under different and distinct condi- 
tions. To the soul which now lives on earth 
this truth cannot be made wholly plain, for it 
can only partially understand that which is 
spoken concerning the life, of which it has no 
actual knowledge. I will illustrate this truth 
in this manner. The intellect which is power- 
ful as well as learned in abstract questions of 
physical knowledge, finds it very difficult to 
convey its thoughts correctly to the intellect 
which is neither strong nor learned. In many 
cases it is impossible that this should be done. 
Here is an instance wherein of two intellects 
existing under the same conditions of life, 
wherein all the sources of knowledge are as free 
and open to one as to the other, the one clear- 



88 THE CONTINUITY OF 

ly comprehends physical truth which if is im- 
possible that the other should comprehend, in 
its existing state of development. 

Now spiritual understanding differs not in 
this particular from physical. The soul of one 
with its spiritual understanding largely de- 
veloped, will readily comprehend a spiritual 
truth which the soul of another equally cul- 
tured in physical learning, will find it impos- 
sible to comprehend, because of the lack of 
development of its spiritual nature. The fact 
that the one can and the other cannot compre- 
hend a given spiritual truth in no sense indi- 
cates the power of the intellect or the degree 
of its culture. It does indicate the degree to 
which the spiritual nature has been developed 
by earthly life. What is this spiritual nature 
which may or may not be developed in human 
life? To answer this question I must enlarge 
it, and ask what is the nature of a human soul 
considered as an entity, an intelligent exist- 
ence, possessing power of will, and existing in- 
dependent of all other created entities? When 
its nature as such shall be comprehended, then 
its spiritual nature must be comprehended as a 
part of the whole. This subject is not so diffi- 
cult as it at first thought appears. There is- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



89 



an easy road to the understanding of truth, 
whether physical or. spiritual. 

It begins with the simplest elements which 
enter into and compose a truth, and the com- 
plete mastery of them, before another is con- 
sidered. This mastery of the simplest makes 
those more difficult as easy of mastery as were 
the simplest. By this road the most intricate 
is as easy to acquire as is the simplest. I have 
in the preceding chapter indicated some truths 
which I will attempt to impart only in this 
manner; but this one I will make as plain as 
it is possible for me to make it, when abruptly 
spoken. 

Human life is a distinct creation. It is 
superior to all the creations which preceded it 
in the series of which it was the last, and is 
distinct from them all in the fact that it bears 
the image of the Uncreated Life. That image 
is its freedom of will, its moral responsibility. 
Neither of these attributes can be separated 
from everlasting existence. He who gave to 
His creatures these two attributes, was power- 
less to withhold the latter, powerless because 
self-limited. The reason for this is thus ex- 
pressed. The attribute of self-will implies 
distinctive and independent existence. That 



90 THE CONTINUITY OF 

existence comes alone from one source to all 
who possess it. It is the creative act of the 
Uncreated One by which the soul of man is 
thus endowed, and no human soul can exist 
without such creation. The endowment of a 
soul with these attributes constitutes it a con- 
scious being, capable of knowing its Creator 
and of obeying or of disobeying his commands. 
To deprive a being thus endowed, of its ex- 
istence, would be opposed to divine justice, 
and would disprove eternal and unchanging 
love. By such limits is Omnipotence self- 
limited. The same is not true of any nature 
of which these attributes are not a part. There- 
fore that life which is below the life of the 
human soul, is not continuous. Whether its 
destruction is of its entirety or only of its in- 
dividuality, I will not now reason, but that its 
individuality is destroyed needs no argument. 
When therefore life has been bestowed upon a 
human soul and that soul has been endowed 
with freedom of will and with moral responsi- 
bility, that gift is irrevocable, that life is ever- 
lasting. Its origin is the lowest that it is pos- 
sible that a being thus endowed should have. 
Moral responsibility and freedom of will can- 
not be bestowed upon any creature lower than 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 9 * 

the human soul; neither can the conditions 
which surround human life be made any lower 
than those under which Adam's race was 
created, and which have since continued. Hu- 
man life is on the very lowest plane of exist- 
ence in which moral responsibility can exist, 
therefore it is possible that revelations of the 
existence and love of our Creator should be 
made to man more plainly than it is possible 
that they could be given to creatures superior 
to man. This is the purpose of man's crea- 
tion; that through these revelations to the 
human soul Divine Existence and eternal love 
might be equally manifested to his creatures 
superior to man. Life is therefore not given 
to the soul for its pleasure alone, neither for 
the happiness it will bring to our Creator, but 
primarily and wholly for the preservation of 
happiness to those creatures which are superi- 
or to man. That this was the purpose and 
the existing necessity when human life was 
created, I can only assert. Death alone can 
make this assertion positive knowledge. If 
this thought is accepted we can comprehend 
human life more readily, and my thoughts shall 
be founded upon this as truth. 

The lowest intellectual power where intellec- 



92 THE CONTINUITY OF 

tual power exists at all grasps the thought of 
a future life. That thought is inborn, it is a 
part of the soul's creation. The soul with a 
low degree of intellectual power is more sus- 
ceptible to the impressions of spiritual truth 
than is the soul of any higher degree of intel- 
lectual power. As intellectual power increases 
the effect of revelation upon the soul dimin- 
ishes. Inversely as is the degree of intellect- 
ual power, so is the effect of divine revela- 
tion. The two are antagonistic, of necessity. 
When Adam's race was first created it was 
without developed intellectual power, and man 
knew his Creator's thoughts, as he knew the 
thoughts of his fellow man. So it continued 
through ages, but when intellectual power be- 
gan its marked development, then spiritual con- 
sciousness of the Creators' will departed as 
rapidly as intellect developed. To counteract 
this, new revelations became necessary; those 
which appealed more directly to man's intel- 
lectual nature; those which arrested and held 
his thought; those which appealed to his fear; 
and those which promised happiness in human 
and spiritual life. Prophecy was given for 
future ages which should realize its truth. 
This was to prevent the intellectual nature 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 93 

completely dominating the soul. At last when 
necessity demanded it, came the final revelation 
of divine love in the person of the Son of 
God. With his life and teachings revelation 
ceased forever, and humanity was left to con- 
tinue the struggle between its intellectual and 
its spiritual natures down to the end of its 
existence. That man should be intellectually 
endowed was a necessity of his creation. With- 
out such endowment he could not have main- 
tained his existence. That this endowment 
should weaken his spiritual nature is equally a 
necessity, because the functions of each are 
contrar}^ to those of the other. Intellectual 

power is created to subdue matter and to dis- 
cover and apply the forces of matter; it is 
created to reason about matter; to conceive of 
matter and material laws, and to comprehend 
all these in a material existence. Beyond 
these purposes of its creation it cannot go; 
and when the soul is once dominated wholly 
by its intellectual powers, it is powerless to 
worship any other than a material god, and as 
these same powers in most cases forbid this, it 
worships nothing. I have said that this is true 
of the soul whose intellectual power, dominates 
it. It is not true when the spiritual nature 



94 THE CONTINUITY OF 

of the soul has the ascendency. Then the in- 
tellectual is dominated by the spiritual nature 
and subserves it. It is therefore true that in 
one soul we find a powerful intellect with a 
subservient spiritual nature, and in that soul 
we find an absence of spiritual understanding 
corresponding with the development of its spir- 
itual nature. In another soul we find an equally 
powerful intellect, but it is subservient to a still 
more powerful spiritual nature, and in that soul 
we find largely developed spiritual understand- 
ing. The soul which is dominated by its in- 
tellectual nature is not capable of understand- 
ing spiritual truth. It is as powerless to un- 
derstand it as are the blind to see. The only 
hope for such a soul is that the spiritual nature 
may acquire the ascendency over the intellect- 
ual. This is sometimes quickly accomplished, 
sometimes slowly, sometimes, never. In the 
latter case the soul will never know spiritual 
truth, either in earth, or in spiritual existence. 
It will never know either its Creator or its 
Creator's love, and will thereby be forever in- 
sensible to its own great loss. 

Let not this thought be misinterpreted to 
mean that it will never be unhappy. The only 
source of happiness in spiritual existence is the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 95 

very knowledge of which it is forever deprived. 
Without this knowledge in the spiritual exist- 
ence happiness is as impossible as would be 
sunshine in the physical world without a sun. 
One more thought; it is my assertion only; 
I cannot sustain it even by argument, because 
it is not within the range of human comprehen- 
sion, limited by human experiences. It is 
this: in human life it is easier to acquire spir- 
itual knowledge than it is to acquire it in spir- 
itual existence. The reason for it I can give t 
but it is not apparent, neither will it be read- 
ily accepted. God's revelation of himself to 
the human race, is the clearest revelation that 
it is possible for him to give to any created 
intelligence; and the soul which having at- 
tained its powers, and formed its judgments in 
human life, against the sufficiency or the truth 
of this revelation, will never be able to change 
its judgments thereafter. When the possibility 
of human happiness is withdrawn from that 
soul by death it is as powerless to know hap- 
piness as if happiness existed not. Such soul 
is forever lost through the use it has made of 
its intellectual powers, and because of its fail- 
ure to recognize and develop its own spiritual 
nature. There is greater hope for that soul 



b THE CONTINUITY OF 

which is without intellectual power, and also 
without spiritual development. Such soul is 
dominated by human propensities and instincts, 
so nearly allying it with the creatures below, 
those which are endowed with moral respon- 
sibility, that its responsibility is very limited. 
It may even be below the line of any moral 
responsibility. Such is an instance where the 
baser propensities of human nature and the 
instincts which ally man with the brute crea- 
tion, have the ascendency, and have held man's 
spiritual nature in subjection. No freedom 
of choice is possible to such a soul, concerning 
that of which it has neither knowledge, nor 
the power to acquire knowledge. Such soul 
is without knowledge of that which is the only 
source of happiness in spiritual existence, and 
is Without the power to acquire that knowledge 
in its human life; therefore it enters spiritual 
existence without the possibility of happiness 
until that knowledge is acquired; and it is 
more difficult to acquire it in spiritual existence 
than it is in human. Must such soul be for- 
ever unhappy because of the lack of that which 
it has never had the power to acquire? If with- 
out freedom of choice it enters spiritual ex- 
istence, without that knowledge which alone 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



97 



can bestow happiness upon it, and this state 
is not of its own free choice, shall it forever 
continue unhappy? The eternal justice of 
our father God is so plainly revealed to those 
who know his eternal love, that my answer 
to this question could add nothing to that 
which is revealed. That souls life is then as 
if it had just begun. All that eternal love 
supported by spiritual love and knowledge can 
do to lead that soul into the knowledge which 
will bestow happiness upon it, will be done, 
until with powers developed, rendering it ca- 
pable of free choice, it shall make that choice 
for itself. Then eternal justice shall have 
been met, and eternal love shall be revealed 
to or hidden from that soul, according as its 
choice shall be. 

What then have I shown concerning the soul 
which is created human, and concerning the 
life which is bestowed upon it? 

First, that its existence is because of the 
creative act of our Creator's will. That life 
accompanied with freedom of will and moral 
responsibility is His gift to it, and must be 
everlasting because of those attributes which 
are in the likeness of the same attributes of 
its Creator. 



98 THE CONTINUITY OF 

Second, that its nature is threefold as God's 
is triune. 

That either power of this nature may dom- 
inate its life to the exclusion of the other two. 
That when the spiritual nature is lacking in 
development, no spiritual knowledge can be 
acquired, and without such knowledge happi- 
ness is impossible in spiritual existence. That 
a developed spiritual nature controls the other 
two natures, and that a development of either 
of the other two, to a domination of the spir- 
itual, so far destroys the spiritual that it is 
powerless to bestow spiritual knowledge upon 
the soul. That when this domination is by the 
lowest of the other two, it incapacitates the 
soul for freedom of choice, through lack of 
knowledge; and to such soul knowledge neces- 
sary for a free choice, will be given in spiritual 
existence. That when the intellectual is the 
dominating power, the lack of spiritual knowl- 
edge, is the soul's free choice, which is irre- 
vocable, and fixes its spiritual state forever. 
Now this is human life; these are its endow- 
ments; and these its powers. I will enlarge 
upon the spiritual nature only; the other two 
are open to your daily study. 

The spiritual nature of man is in a measure 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 99 

hidden from the soul which possesses it. The 
intellectual and the physical natures are in no 
sense hidden. Their existence is manifested 
to the soul by its own experiences, and to deny 
their existence would be equivalent to the 
souls denying its own existence. Human phy- 
losophy may have gone even to this length, 
but it has received no support. The soul of 
man knows that it exists, possessing an intel- 
lectual and a physical nature. It is conscious 
of these truths because it has experienced them. 
By its own will power it has controlled and 
used the powers which belong to both these 
natures, and through the exercise of these 
powers it has received the proof of the exist- 
ence of these natures. Such proof is satisfac- 
tory and is accepted, and because of it the soul 
declares its own existence and its possession 
of two distinct natures. Thus far the experi- 
ence of every soul possessing any development 
of the intellectual nature, carries it. If it pos- 
sesses no development of the intellectual pow- 
ers then it is ignorant of its possession of such 
a nature, and it bases all its conceptions of its 
existence upon its physical experiences. This 
is the lowest conception of life that can be 
given to a human creature, and is kindred to 



L.cfC. 



100 THE CONTINUITY OF 

that which the instinct cf the brute creation 
gives to it concerning its life. It is therefore 
possible that a soul endowed with intellectual 
powers should exist in human life, without 
knowledge of its intellectual nature. While the 
very act of conceiving this truth would require 
the exercise of these powers, yet it might use 
them to a limited extent without recognizing 
their existence. The boundary line between an- 
imal instinct and intellectual power is difficult 
of location, even by the highest developed in- 
tellect itself. Yet that intellect which cannot 
locate the boundary of either, will not question 
the existence of these two separate and distinct 
natures, the one belonging to man, the other 
belonging to the brute creation. While the 
brute possesses not an intellectual nature in 
any degree, it does possess that which is to it, 
what the intellectual nature of the soul is to 
man. Instinct is the shadow of intellect. The 
intellect of man is the shadow of that which is 
higher than man, which is again the shadow 
of that which is Divine and uncreated. In 
this sense intellect is a reflection of Divine 
powers. So is instinct. And as instinct ceases 
to exist when that which necessitated its crea- 
tion ceases, so will the intellectual powers cf 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 101 

man cease to exist when that which necessitat- 
ed their existence likewise ceases. This is not 
saying that the intellect of man shall cease to 
exist, but only that intellectual development 
which is the result of human conditions. If it 
be true as 1 have stated that man's present 
intellectual powers were bestowed upon him to 
enable him to subdue physical nature, discern 
its laws, and control. its forces, then it ration- 
ally follows that when these powers can no 
longer be used for thes*e purposes, they will 
pass away. It is equally rational that this use 
of them will shortly end with every soul, for 
it can alone be measured by the span of its 
human life. Thereafter if these powers con- 
tinued they could avail it nothing. Without 
discussing this thought here I want to now 
suggest to the thinking soul that physical truth 
can only be acquired in a physical existence, 
amid physical surroundings, and by the use of 
physical powers. When such an existence has 
forever ceased to the soul, when physical sur- 
roundings become an impossibility and phys- 
ical powers have perished with the physical 
being, then will physical knowledge become 
both useless and unattainable. 

As the intellectual nature is now revealed to 



102 THE CONTINUITY OF 

the soul by the exercise of its powers, and in 
like manner is revealed to it the physical na- 
ture which belongs to it, and the instinct of 
creatures below human, so will its spiritual 
nature be hereafter revealed to the soul, through 
the exercise of the powers which pertain to it. 
Has the soul these powers now? When the 
soul is created it is endowed with all the pow- 
ers which it ever can possess, both physical, 
intellectual, and spiritual. Slowly its phys- 
cial powers unfold with physical life; slowly 
its intellectual powers may be developed; some- 
times they are not, but when they are not they 
exist as powers of the soul, just as truly as 
when they are developed. Still more slowly 
if at all, the spiritual powers of the soul are 
brought into use, during human life. To mul- 
titudes of human beings the existence of such 
powers is wholly unknown. In some they are 
developed so feebly that their existence is 
scarcely preceptible to the human soul which 
uses them. In some they are clearly recognized, 
but not understood. In rare instances has the 
human soul attained a mastery over any of 
them in human life. These instances are not 
.within the scope of this chapter. It is suffi- 
cient for me to declare this truth and leave the 
argument sustaining it to another time. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 103 

The spiritual nature of the soul is therefore 
revealed to the soul in precisely the same man- 
ner as are its physical nature and its intellect- 
ual nature, and to those to whom the same 
evidence is rendered possible, its existence is 
no less distinctly revealed. 



104 THE CONTINUITY OF 



CHAPTER IV. 

The existence of a spiritual nature as a part 
of the soul's endowment was shown in the last 
chapter. That such nature exists should be 
proof that there is a spiritual existence. It is 
proof of this to those who have learned to 
know their spirtiual nature and to realize its 
powers, as they know their intellectual nature 
and realize its powers. The very exercise of 
these powers is inconsistent with any other 
belief or theory; and to one to whom spiritual 
powers have become as distinctly defined as 
are the intellectual powers to the greater num- 
ber, to doubt spiritual life becomes no more 
easy than to doubt human life. The few who 
reach this understanding need not these words, 
and they are not given for such. I speak to 
those whose belief in a spiritual existence, 
continuous with and immediately following 
human existence, is not firmly fixed, and ta 
those who live without such belief. Such alone 
I seek to interest in this chapter, and to lead 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 105 

to the acceptance of thoughts which will follow 
it. The first impulse of the human soul is to 
believe in spiritual existence. If this impulse 
is followed belief in such existence comes as 
naturally, as belief in physical truths. This 
is true of very many, and of such existence 
they have no shadow of doubt. If it was true 
of all then these words would never have been 
written. Those to whom no doubt ever comes 
concerning the fact of spiritual existence, are 
happy in the possession of a normally devel- 
oped spiritual nature. Whatever their moral 
status may be, their spiritual nature is not 
lacking in development. Those by whom this 
truth is only accepted as a hope, and who are 
powerless to overcome their doubts concerning 
it, are not normally developed in their spirit- 
ual natures. 

If with this there is large intellectual devel- 
opment, their danger is the greater. It is when 
the intellectual powers have assumed full con- 
trol of the soul's judgments, that the spiritual 
nature is withered, and if not restored, will 
ultimately perish, in so far as any use of its 
powers is concerned. To such souls I give these 
thoughts now and hope to be able to convince 
them hereafter of the truth that is dimly 



06 THE CONTINUITY OF 

shown by them. I who speak to you am dis- 
tinct and individual in my existence. The 
power of will is mine as unfettered as it was 
in human life. I speak what I will to speak. 
I refrain from speaking what I do not desire 
to speak. The soul through whom I speak is 
powerless to control my thoughts, aud I am 
powerless to control his thoughts, except as he 
wills to give me such control. This he gives 
and withholds at his pleasure. His soul is as 
distinctly separate from my soul, and his 
thoughts as distinctly separate from my 
thoughts, as are the souls and the thoughts of 
two persons in human life. I leave him if I 
will, and give place to another; of this he is 
conscious by a power that needs no explana- 
tion now. The development of these powers 
in him has been so gradual and through such 
a course of preparation for it that it excites 
in him no wonder, not even an unusual inter- 
est. I refer to these facts not as an argument 
establishing spiritual existence, for such an 
argument would be quickly met by the claim 
that he is self-deceived, but to help illustrate 
a truth which I hope to establish otherwise. 
That truth is this. Death destroys not the 
identity, the exercise of the powers of the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 107 

soul, nor the consciousness of the exercise of 
them; and these three things constitute life, 
whether it be in human or in spiritual exist- 
ence. Life might exist without consciousness 
of either, it might even exist without con- 
sciousness of any of them, but it would not be 
life in the sense in which developed human 
beings live, and I want it understood that it 
is in this sense alone that I use the word life 
in applying it to spiritual existence. In any 
less degree spiritual life would not satisfy the 
longings of the human soul. The fact that 
the human soul longs for such an existence is 
one proof that there is such an existence. 
Would infinite power controlled by eternal 
love, create a nature with a longing for that 
which existed not? To those who know that 
eternal love, and believe that it exists with 
infinite power, the answer to this question is 
not uncertain ; to others it can be at most only 
partially satisfying. 

Does the human soul possess powers which 
when developed enable it to comprehend its 
spiritual nature, and if this is possible can it 
comprehend that which exists not? If the 
soul possesses a spiritual nature, does it not 
follow that it will have a spiritual life adopted 



108 THE CONTINUITY OF 

to that nature? Does not the latter follow as 
a matter of reason? Is it not sustained by 
every analogy from nature? Can the doubting 
soul find anything in nature that was created 
without a purpose? Of all things he may not 
be able to discern the purpose, but of so many 
he is able to discern the purpose, that he will 
accept the truth that all are created for a pur- 
pose, and accepting this truth and also the 
truth that the soul possesses a spiritual nature, 
with spiritual powers, I ask what is the purpose 
of this nature and of these powers, if it is not 
to fit it for spiritual existence. The acceptance 
of the fact of such a nature and of such powers, 
necessitates the acceptance of a purpose for 
which they were created. Do they serve any 
purpose in human existence? Is there anything 
in human existence that would be impossible 
without them? There is not. In many human 
beings fulfilling all the functions of human 
life, the spiritual nature and all spiritual 
powers are unknown to the person himself, 
and are equally unknown to others. They lie 
dormant, embryonic, awaiting conditions which 
render their development possible. These 
conditions may come in human life, but if not 
they must come in spiritual existence. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 109 

I therefore declare that any soul which seeks 
this knowledge may satisfy itself of the exis- 
tence of this spiritual nature and of these spir- 
itual powers, both personal to itself, and pos- 
sessed by every other human being, and reach- 
ing this conclusion the conviction will then be 
forced upon it, that the purpose of their crea- 
tion, pertains not to human existence but to 
spiritual. This thought becomes a settled con- 
viction, a fixed belief. Do you want this con- 
viction? Do you long for such belief? Then 
labor for it with the earnestness with which 
you strive to acquire human knowledge, and 
you will not be disappointed. 

What is spiritual existence? To answer this 
question I must ask; what is human existence? 
To answer the latter is to answer the former, 
with the single exception that for human na- 
ture and human powers, spiritual nature and 
spiritual powers are substituted. I shall there- 
fore attempt to define human life as the basis 
of an explanation of spiritual. 

Human life is the manifestation of intelli- 
gent, individual, conscious, power, by the ex- 
ercise of functions which belong to physical 
or human existence. Such functions are those 
which are denominated human powers. They 



HO THE CONTINUITY OF 

are the means by which the intelligent power 
called the soul manifests its existence to it- 
self, and to other intelligent, individual, con- 
scious, souls. Such functions are the only 
means whereby it is possible for the human 
soul to satisfy itself of its own existence, or 
to satisfy other individual conscious souls of 
its existence. Is this true or not? Let any 
who deny its truth watch beside the human 
form of one who is his dearest friend, as one 
by one the functions of human life cease. 
Speech fails; sight fails; hearing fails; sensa- 
tion fails; the control of the will over the hu- 
man body fails; finally that control of the 
soul over the body which is involuntary, fails; 
and you pronounce your loved one dead. Why 
dead? Because he has ceased through the 
functions of his human life to manifest his ex- 
istence to your soul. So long as one human 
function, whether voluntary or involuntary, 
remained, you accepted its exercise as evi- 
dence, of your friend's existence, and nothing 
could have shaken your belief in that exis- 
tence. That one last function which bound 
his existence to yours, ceases, and you, doubt- 
ing soul, believe that the life which was your 
loved one, has gone out! The loving Father 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. HI 

save you from such a thought. It is not true; 
it is unnatural that it should be true. 

That which you see and know of the human 
soul is but the lowest manifestation of its ex- 
istence, which is possible to it, and you would 
accept it as all that is possible to it. 

I have shown you what human life is. Is 
it possible that I should show you what spirit- 
ual life is? If you had not the power to per- 
ceive any one of the functions of human life, 
would it have been possible to have shown 
you, or for you to have understood what hu- 
man life is? Yet under precisely the same 
conditions must I seek to show you and must 
you seek to understand what spiritual life is. 
If you could perceive one single function of 
that life, then would its existence be made as 
plain to you as is the existence of human life. 
This difficulty is for some insurmountable, be- 
cause they will not make the necessary effort 
to surmount it, but there is no human soul 
created that cannot satisfy itself of spiritual 
existence by this means. Will you who doubt 
it try to follow, as I may lead your thoughts? 
I have nothing to offer to those who seek ar- 
gument and controversy, for the result of ar- 
gument is to strengthen any position whether 



112 THE CONTINUITY OF 

it be right or wrong. If therefore you choose 
to argue against the existence of spiritual life, 
your argument will strengthen you in the dis- 
belief of such an existence. If you want to 
disbelieve it the way is thus pointed out to 
you to secure what you desire. If on the other 
hand you want to believe in such an existence, 
the way to fix that belief is pointed out with 
equal clearness. Choose which you will. If 
it is your desire to believe, follow my thoughts, 
without seeking every opportunity to argue 
against and criticise them. If you do not want 
to believe, then follow them with that con- 
stantly in view. 

It belongs to infinite power alone to convince 
a soul against its will, and infinite power is 
self-limited in this particular. No soul ever 
has had or ever will have spiritual truth forced 
upon it. It is only given in response to an 
effort of the soul to acquire it and unless that 
effort is made in human life, by those to whom 
a knowledge of its existence is brought, it will 
never be made Spiritual truth does not come 
of necessity, because of conscious spiritual ex- 
istence. This cannot give one truth that 
should be defined as spiritual. It reveals to 
the soul simply its continued existence, that 
and nothing more. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. H3 

All else pertaining to spiritual truth must 
be sought earnestly and presistently, either in 
human life or in spiritual existence, and the 
soul to which this search is possible in human 
life, and which refuses to make it, will forever 
refuse, for the opportunity once given and re- 
fused can never again be rendered possible. 
Thereafter ignorance of spiritual truth is the 
happiest possible state in which such soul can 
exist, and the love which was without begin- 
ing, and which can never be withdrawn, or 
diminished has so created it. 

What are the functions of the spiritual na- 
ture and of its powers which are within the 
reach of the understanding of all? 

Beginning with the plainest, it is the yearning 
of the human soul for a continued or a future 
existence. The sou] has never been created 
to which such yearning has not come. If cher- 
ished it has grown. If suppressed it has di- 
minished, and may have been lost entirely, for 
it is within the limits of the power of human 
philosophy, to so far stultify the nature with 
which the soul is endowed when created, that 
it should deliberately choose annihilation as 
its end. Such cases are not common, and they 
are as deplorable as they are rare, in human 



114 THE CONTINUITY OF 

life. In spiritual existence wherein to the 
lost soul eternity can never reveal the purpose 
of its creation, or one single source of happi- 
ness within the limit of its powers, annihila- 
tion is the longing desire of its existence; a 
desire impossible of realization. The spiritual 
state of the soul which on earth has this desire, 
is not different from that which I have de- 
scribed in spiritual existence, except that to 
such soul there still remains, the sources and 
the means of human happiness. Remove these 
from it, and it would realize its future state. 
This plainest spiritual power and function 
is known to every soul; and it alone is suffi- 
cient to guide the soul to fuller knowledge, 
which it surely does if not suppressed. When 
left to its course the next power it reveals to 
the soul is its power of worship. This is both 
a longing and a power. It follows a yearning 
after continued or spiritual existence, as cer- 
tainly as an effect follows a cause in human 
life. The one is not the effect of the other, 
for the power to worship is a distinct spiritual 
power of the human soul. Its development is 
the effect of the exercise of this yearning after 
spiritual existence. All may know this power 
to worship. Some have not known it because 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 115 

they have suppressed that which develops it. 
This power is not dependent upon intellectual 
development in any sense. It is independent 
of it in every sense. It reveals to the soul 
that there exists some object or power, which 
ought to be worshiped. The fact that this 
power is realized, is felt, leads the soul intui- 
tively to the knowledge, that there exists some 
person, or power or thing, for the worship of 
which, this power was given; otherwise a 
power would have been created without a pur- 
pose. The soul without intellectual develop- 
ment knows that this is not true. Here then 
is a plainly manifested spiritual power which 
can have no purpose not founded upon a spir- 
itual existence. Shall I stop here where nat- 
ural revelation ends? If I should is it not 
sufficient to lead the soul which seeks spiritual 
truth to the worship of a Being of infinite 
power, whatever other atributes that soul might 
ascribe to Him? Such has been the result of 
the exercise of these two spiritual powers 
wherever and whenever they have been guided 
alone by natural revelation. Man has worshiped 
from the beginning of his accountable state, 
and will worship to the end of human exis- 
tence. The only power that can destroy wor- 



116 THE CONTINUITY OF 

ship in man is the power of his intellectual 
nature, developed and dominating his spiritual 
nature. The most inhuman of all human creat- 
ures is the soul dominated by intellectual power. 
Its spiritual nature is suppressed, its human 
nature distorted. It is an idolater of the worst 
form. It knows nothing above itself, and will 
worship nothing beneath itself, therefore un- 
less it has even blighted and crushed out its 
own instinctive desire for worship, it wor- 
ships itself. In spiritual ignorance this intel- 
lectual giant dies, and must forever live. 

What may I in this connection properly say 
in reference to divine revelation? This, and 
nothing more. It is the supplement of natural 
revelation. The soul which has not accepted 
natural revelation, can not accept divine 
revelation, and the soul which has accepted 
natural revelation, finds no difficulty in ac- 
cepting divine revelation. My thought there- 
fore is now to urge the acceptance of natural 
revelation, with the knowledge that if this is 
done the acceptance of divine revelation is 
assured. 

Neither is it possible that the class to which 
I address these thoughts should accept divine 
revelation, until they have accepted natural 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 11 

revelation. That in nature which leads the 
soul to seek spiritual truth, is natural reve- 
lation. To the yearning of the soul for spir- 
itual life and the power to worship which this 
yearning develops, is to be added as belonging 
to natural revelation, all the evidences of 
spiritual existence which it is possible should 
be given to man. That such evidences have 
been given to some souls from the earliest 
period of man's existence, seems to be historic 
truth. But the evidences of it have been and 
are so mixed with that which is deceptive, that 
the fact of any manifestation of spiritual ex- 
istence to the human soul, at any period of the 
world's existence, is not accepted by all. Re- 
moved from the historic record of which I speak 
is the Divine Record of the divine revelation 
of this existence to man, concerning which I 
cannot now argue, for it is not comprehended 
within the scope of the subject of this chapter. 
Of the reality of such a revelation, its authen- 
ticity and its perfection, there exists not a 
doubt, in the soul who gives these thoughts, 
or in the soul through whom they are given. 
There always have lived those who believed 
not only in the historic record of these facts, 
but in similar experiences in their own times. 



118 THE CONTINUITY OF 

I will grant, that all may have been deceived, 
in some particulars ; some may have been 
wholly deceived, but is it reasonable that a 
thought, a belief, should take hold upon the 
human race in the infancy of its intellectual 
development, and continue as one of its 
thoughts, and an accepted belief of many, 
from that beginning to the present day, if found- 
ed wholly upon deception and erroneous con- 
ceptions of facts? If this be true of this one 
thought and belief, it is not true of any other 
It is not reasonable that it should be true of 
this. I therefore assert that from the earliest 
ages of man, there has been some measure of 
interchange of thought between intelligences 
in spiritual existence and the human soul. 
This was and is accomplished through the 
exercise of a spiritual power, possessed by 
every soul, but developed in human life, in 
very few. The great majority of the few in 
whom it is developed, know not the power. 
They receive, accept, reject, or ignore that 
which comes to them through it; and those 
from whom the power is wholly hidden, do 
likewise. A power which cannot always be 
recognized by those who possses it, which is 
understood by none who use it, and sometimes 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



119 



ignored by those to whom it is most plainly 
revealed, is indeed a subtle power, so far re- 
moved from all the functions of the soul which 
are human, and so antagonistic to those which 
are intellectual, that it must of necessity be 
limited in its effect upon mankind. That it 
is so all are ready to admit. Why it is a ne- 
cessity that it should be so is one of the in- 
tricate problems of a truth which few have 
power to acquire. For the sole purpose of 
asserting its existence and using it as a part 
of the natural revelation of spiritual life, I 
now refer to it. To those who will admit that 
such a power exists, there is no further need 
for argument or illustration. It is the connect- 
ing link between two existences, which when 
accepted, compels acceptance of that existence 
to which it binds human life. I urge not upon 
those who know nothing of this power, a study 
of it. It may be beyond their attainment. It 
may curse them if attained. But of the fact of 
its existence, and that it always has existed, 
I do urge careful study. It is not necessary 
that all should penetrate the densest jungle 
of the darkest continent of the realm of cre- 
ated truths, in order to believe that they exist; 
but if one soul cast by doubts upon such 



120 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



shores, enters the jungle, and after years of 
struggle, ascends to the joyous light of its 
highest mountain, accept the story of that 
soul, and believe not only that they exist, but 
also that the only possible road to this moun- 
tain lies through the jungle. There is no 
thought which so links earth to Heaven, as 
this thought. There is no power which so 
links earth to Hell as this power. Cherish 
and adore the thought, but shun and escape 
the power. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 121 



CHAPTER V. 

There is nothing that tends to purity of pur- 
pose, like worship. The motive for worship 
may be twofold. First, reverence for the 
object worshiped, second, a desire to become 
like the object worshiped. The results of 
worship are manifested in these directions ac- 
cording to the sincerity of the worshiper. This 
truth is open to every day observance. The 
soul which worships a Divine Being in sincer- 
ity becomes like unto its conceptions of that 
Divine Being. It reverences whom it worships. 
The conceptions of the Divine Being which 
now prevail are different from the conceptions 
of the same Being, which prevailed in the 
early periods of his worship by the human 
race. Man's present conceptions of him are 
more nearly correct than were his first concep- 
tions of him. This is the result of man's 
worship of him through the ages of human 
worship. It these conceptions have changed, 
it follows that they will change; and that the 



122 THE CONTINUITY OF 

change which -will come must be in the direc- 
tion of a perfect conception of him. To attain 
that perfection is beyond the limit of the 
powers of human conception. It is likewise 
beyond the limit of the powers of conception 
of those who are superior to the human race. 
This being the purpose and the result of wor- 
ship, the same worship of the same Divine 
Being will be continued without end by all 
those who choose such worship in sincerity 
and with freedom of will, whether that choice 
be made on earth, or in spiritual existence. 
This choice is presented to the human soul 
but once during its existence. If that be in 
its human life, its choice then made is final. If 
it is impossible that it should make such choice 
in human life, for lack of that knowledge 
which is necessary for a choice, then the 
choice will come with the knowledge, and 
when made will be equally final. The soul 
sincerely choosing the worship of the Divine 
Being, may have conceptions concerning him 
which are monstrous in their error, yet the 
worship of such soul is none the less true wor- 
ship, because of these misconceptions; and ii 
it sincerely persists in its worship its concep- 
tions will be gradually changed in the direction 
of perfection. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 123 

Without the possibility of ever attaining 
this perfection the changes will ever be in 
that direction. This is the course of the soul 
which worships. The opposite is true of the 
soul which worships not. At first it has a con- 
ception o # f the Divine Being, which conception 
may be more nearly correct than that of the 
ignorant worshiper. Failing to worship, such 
soul gradually looses its conceptions, first be- 
cause of doubts and uncertainties, and later 
through disbelief in the one concerning whom 
it doubts. Its conceptions tend from the truth 
as steadily as those of the worshiper tend to- 
wards the truth, until finally they are merged 
in unbelief. Unbelief is denial of God's ex- 
istence whether out spoken or suppressed. As 
such soul starts so will it ever continue. In 
human life it may retrace its steps, but in 
spiritual existence it cannot. In this truth we 
find the principle upon which the two states of 
the soul in spiritual existence depends. Is it 
not reasonable that my statement be true? 
Then is it not reasonable that you should ac- 
cept that which my statement teaches? Will 
it satisfy any of the inconsistencies which have 
presented themselves to your mind in consider- 
ing the moral status here and hereafter of 



124 THE CONTINUITY OF 

those who worship and of those who do not? 
Follow me then to the conclusion of this truth. 

To that end I take up first the condition and 
the course of the soul which worships. Such 
soul first believes in an object worthy of wor- 
ship. In that belief it studies continuously 
the attributes of the being it worships. It 
accepts all that is revealed to it concerning 
that being, and what is not revealed to it, it 
assumes according to its highest idea of per- 
fection. To every worshiper the object of its 
worship is perfect. To worship is to strive to 
imitate. The two are inseparable. Therefore 
the worshiper is ever striving to imitate the 
highest ideal of perfection, of which he is ca- 
pable. This is true without reference to the 
moral development or intelligence of the wor- 
shiper. 

In this connection I give you another thought 
which is as important as this one. It is this. 
The Divine Being is revealed to the soul of 
man inversely as is the degree of his intelli- 
gence. Revelation comes through the spiritual 
nature alone. The less the development of 
the intellectual nature, the more readily does 
the spiritual nature assert itself and assume 
control of the soul. This is the law of spirit- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 125 

ual and of intellectual development, and to 
this law there is no exception. It therefore 
follows that the soul which has no intellectual 
development has the greatest desire for wor- 
ship, and is the most easily influenced by wor- 
ship. Then would I argue against intellectual 
development? Not in any sense whatever. 
The argument is this. Begin with the devel- 
opment of the spiritual nature, and keep it 
ever in advance of the intellectual. I would 
rather be a soul utterly devoid of intelligence, 
possessing spiritual perception, than to possess 
the greatest intellectual powers, and to be de- 
void of spiritual perception. Both states are 
possible to the human race, but neither is nec- 
essary. The soul possesses power to choose 
its own spiritual state in human life, and this 
being true whatever state it does occupy at 
death, is its own free choice. 

Now I start with a soul as God endows it 
and places it on earth. 

Its first conscious impulse is to know some- 
thing about its future existence. The thought 
of such an existence is no sooner consciously 
present than it feels a desire for such an ex- 
istences, To this truth there is no exception. 
This desire tends towards worship. If influ- 



126 THE CONTINUITY OF 

enced by it worship follows naturally. Wor- 
ship begets thoughts of the object worshiped, 
which becomes its ideal of perfection. These 
thoughts arouse a desire to imitate this ideal 
of perfection. If this desire is then permitted 
to lead the soul, it does strive to imitate its 
ideal. This elevates the soul morally and de- 
velops its spiritual nature, no matter how de- 
based its ideal may be. The spiritual nature 
thus aroused takes firm hold of the soul and 
dominates it. Now should begin intellectual 
development through which the souls ideal 
may be constantly raised, but will never be 
destroyed. Urge forward intellectual progress 
to its utmost degree; push it to the highest 
sphere of human knowledge and it will never 
overtake or control the spiritual nature. It 
may so change the soul's ideal that that which 
was the object of its worship when it started, 
is monstrous in comparison with that which it 
now worships, yet these two ideals are and al- 
ways must be the same Uncreated God, wor- 
shiped now. as then, according to the soul's 
power of conceiving truth. 

Death, human death, comes to this soul ; it 
ceases not for a moment of time to will, to 
think, to reason, to perceive, to worship and 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 127 

to love. To it death is a new revelation of 
divine love, a realization of hopes, a widen- 
ing out of intellectual powers, not in the line 
of physical knowledge, but in the line of spir- 
itual understanding. Standing thus upon the 
first heights of this new-found existence, in the 
clear light of spiritual conception, it reviews 
its life from its first conscious thoughts, and 
at ever) 7 step, in every desire, in every effort, 
it sees written the love of him whom it wor- 
ships. Up, up, along the pathway of its hu- 
man life, that love now shines radiant. Had 
it been blind that it had walked that pathway, 
and not been conscious of that love? There 
were many rough places, many severe trials, 
along that earthly journey, but there is no 
place where the pathway is now hidden from 
the light of that love. The saddest spots of 
all, the saddest hours of human life, are those 
where human fellowships, human companion- 
ships ended; then shadowed in such depths of 
gloom, and by such unbroken mists as to com- 
pletely hide his love. The mists have risen, 
the gloom is gone, and these spots are now as 
bright as any along that way, for God's love 
now shines upon, even them, even them. 
With ecstatic joy that soul now worships 



128 THE CONTINUITY OF 

the same uncreated Being, worshiped inearth, 
and yet not with the same conceptions of him 
which it had on earth, for when it compares 
its last and highest earthly conception of him, 
with its first and lowest earthly conception of 
him, the difference is minute in comparison 
with that which now removes the object of its 
worship from that highest earthly conception. 
In bewildering rapture this soul then turns its 
thoughts to that which is beyond, and if to it 
the life of earth now seems radient with the 
love of God, the revelation to it of the life 
which is to come, is beyond the power of its 
human conception; and that which is beyond 
conception must forever be beyond expression. 
By such limit are you limited on earth, by 
such limit am I limited when giving my 
thoughts to earth. 

Beyond this I seek not to go in this chapter. 
The one thought I wish to impress most of 
all is this, that a consciousness of the love of 
God is the source of all true happiness, whether 
it be in earth or in spiritual existence. The 
conditions of human life bestow that which 
adds to such happiness when these conditions 
are rightly used; but these conditions do not 
survive human death, neither do other condi- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



129 



tions of happiness assume their place. The 
source I name then becomes the only source 
of happiness known to the soul. It therefore 
follows of necessity that if this source is un- 
known, happiness is likewise unknown. 

I now go back and begin with the life of 
another soul. It is like unto the first in all 
its natural endowments. Its first conscious 
thoughts of a future existence have come to 
it; the desire for such an existence is aroused 
within it. That desire draws it toward wor- 
ship, but the soul resists the thought of wor- 
ship, for worship signifies obedience to and an 
effort to imitate the object worshiped, and obe- 
dience is not its desire, neither does it seek to 
imitate for that likewise would require obedi- 
ence. In this uncertain state this soul stops 
to consider. It asks what is to be gained by 
obedience and worship, and what is to be lost 
through disobedience and a failure to worship; 
and with this thought before it, it seeks first 
to understand the ultimate effect of each course. 
To reach a conclusion it begins to study, and 
enters upon investigation. It exists in a nat- 
ural world, and with material thoughts it 
proposes to discern spiritual truths. Its first 
step is a choice; not necessarily final, but final 



130 THE CONTINUITY OF 

unless convinced against its will thereafter. 
Applying material thoughts to spiritual revela- 
tions is its first mistake, for the two do not be- 
long together. It is not possible that spiritual 
truth should be revealed to the soul without 
the use of some material thought, hence God's 
first revelation to the soul is through material 
figures. This is all that it with an undevel- 
oped spiritual nature can understand. Now if 
it accepts the figure and through it seeks the 
truth of which the figure is the type or sym- 
bol, then the figure vanishes from its thoughts 
as a useless thing; but if it seeks to accept 
the figure as the truth and then to measure it 
by material thought, even the budding intellect 
of the child is gaining the ascendency. In this 
the soul views with doubt that which it mis- 
takes for revelation. The intellectual nature 
now aroused is antagonizing the spiritual na- 
ture likewise aroused. That is a contest the 
result of which must be spiritual life or spir- 
itual death, as the spiritual nature or the in- 
tellectual, triumphs. It is not begun and 
ended in a day; it may not be ended in a 
month or year, but it will end in the triumph 
of the one and the subjection of the other. 
If you think this is a figurative expression of 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 131 

a hidden truth, and is not meant literally as 
spoken, and as a warning to those who are in 
that state while they read these words, then 
turn and re-read the first chapter of this vol- 
ume, for therein is my illustration of the truth 
which I now declare. Can any soul doubt 
now that I can see a purpose in the creation 
of a nature that was powerless to escape that 
struggle, and that that nature was so linked 
with me in human life, that I could know its 
every impulse? This thought I will not fol- 
low; it belongs not here. 

The conflict between the intellectual and the 
spiritual natures of the soul, I need not fol- 
low. In the soul whose course I am following 
in this allegory, the intellectual finally tri- 
umphs, the spiritual is subdued. Its resist- 
ance has ceased, it is shriveling back into 
an embryotic state utterly useless, and hope- 
lessly destroyed. That soul no longer knows 
that it has a spiritual nature, for its existence 
is no longer manifested to it through the ex- 
ercise of any spiritual powers. It is at rest 
so far as it can ever know rest. Ask this soul 
whence it came and what the purpose of its ex- 
istence; it can not answer. Ask it what is 
its destiny and what will be its final state; no 



132 THE CONTINUITY OF 

answer. Ask it what happiness is and how 
long it shall continue; the answer comes, "Hu- 
man happiness is the enjoyment of human con- 
ditions, what is beyond is alike unknown to 
all." 

According to its impulses, and as best it 
may, this soul enjoys these human conditions. 
It is a joy which the brute creation shares 
alike with man, except as man adds thereto, 
through intellectual powers denied the brute. 
Beyond this this soul is powerless to know 
happiness, because it is powerless to know its 
source. A mighty effort of its human will 
might yet call into activity the dormant pow- 
ers of its spiritual nature, for the sovereignty 
of the human will is so perfect that intellect 
must do its bidding, even to the surrender of 
its dominion over the spiritual nature. 

The will that has stood aloof until the con- 
test is ended, can in rarest instances be brought 
to assert this power, in human life, and be- 
yond that life its power is lost forever. 

This soul therefore lives, enjoying what it 
may of that which is, in blank uncertainty of 
that which is to be. Thus it dies. Its earthly 
existence passes into the spiritual with a loss 
alone of that which belongs to earth. It rec- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 133 

ognizes its own existence, unchanged in all 
but this. What is that existence to it? What 
it is to it, it is to all who have chosenits part, 
whether such choice has been positive as its 
was, or negative only as is the choice of many. 
He who refuses, through positive effort to 
acquire spiritual truth, negatively chooses to 
remain ignorant of that truth, and ignorance, 
whether positively or negatively chosen is the 
same in its results. What then remains to this 
soul and to all others in like ignorance? Mem- 
ory of human life back to the point where 
memory fades into unconscious existence, which 
point recedes from the beginning of that exis- 
tence, as the soul advances in its existence, 
so that the memory of human life and of hu- 
man happiness must eventually fade away. 
The power to think remains, and will forever 
remain. All intellectual powers which per- 
tain to human knowledge, pass gradually into 
oblivion, for human knowledge can not main- 
tain existence, where it cannot be acquired. 
Then in the great hereafter all that the intel- 
lect now boasts of will be gone and the soul 
be reduced to mere existence. For such exis- 
tence it can see no purpose, and seeing no pur- 
pose it can see no end. On, on, forever on, 



134 THE CONTINUITY OF 

without one hope of change, except it be to 
sink deeper into forgetfulness of that which is 
past, and into uncertainty of that which is to 
come. A life purposeless, reaching back into 
oblivion, and forward into uncertainty; this 
and nothing more, and this forever. That 
which accompanies this life and is the neces- 
sary result of it, belongs not to this subject. 
It will be treated of separately. Into such a 
life the soul which I am following enters im- 
mediately at death. The seeming want of 
change in powers is gratifying. The fact of 
continued, individual, conscious existence is 
assuring, and it is the first impulse of that 
soul to declare that it was right. There is no 
God, there is nothing greater than itself. It 
accepts this as truth and that belief never 
leaves it. There is no knowledge of a Creator 
in that state, neither can there ever be. The 
name of God may be used as it is used in 
earth, by those who know him not. ■ They 
may even offer to that name hypocritical wor- 
ship, in form alone, for God is unknown and 
true worship is impossible where he is un- 
known. While intellect remains, through mem- 
ory, it serves the passing needs of the soul, 
lost in purposeless existence. Herein lies dan- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 135 

ger to those whom it is possible for such souls 
to reach, a danger that has no parallel in hu- 
man experience, from which few ever escape 
who are exposed to it. 

These two spiritual states are possible to 
every soul to which life is given. In either 
case they begin in human existence, and ex- 
tend throughout spiritual existence, with the 
single exception that the soul with developed 
spiritual nature and knowledge of its Creator 
still possesses and must forever possess both 
the power and the freedom to disobey the 
commands of its Creator, and wilful disobedi- 
ence of his commands whether it be in human 
or spiritual life, is sin, and the effect of sin, 
whether committed in human or in spiritual 
life, is spiritual death. What spiritual death 
is I will explain hereafter. 

The soul to which is given human life be- 
yond the period of moral accountability, must 
choose which of these spiritual states it will 
enter, and that choice is generally final. There 
are few who enter into the spiritual state of 
knowledge who destroy that knowledge by wil- 
ful sin. There are few who enter into the 
spiritual state" of unbelief and want of knowl- 
edge, who ever seek that from which they have 



136 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



departed. There are many who linger along 
the boundary line between these two states, 
without knowledge in which they are. Some 
through indifference, some through a struggle 
between their intellectual and their spiritual 
natures. Others are self deceived, believing 
that they are in the state of spiritual knowl- 
edge, while they are actually in its opposite. 
Such self-deception is not difficult to discover, 
if its discovery is sought. There is no possi- 
bility of a soul being self deceived, when it 
seeks to avoid it. To all therefore is the 
thought presented by the words which I have 
spoken, what is my spiritual state, and into 
which would I enter if death removed me at 
this instant. 

I am not writing these words so much to 
urge reform in human conduct, as to aid those 
who have a doubt, to determine what their 
spiritual state is. If through what I say they 
can determine this then all else rests with 
their own free choice. I cannot influence that; 
no human being, not even their Creator can 
control such choice. 

It must come from a desire of the soul, upon 
which it wills to act. Thus willing I may 
aid it in its search after spiritual understand- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 137 

ing, this and nothing more. Now admitting 
the truth of what I say it is the will of the 
soul to seek this knowledge, or to shun it. If 
it is to seek it, then I can aid you in the search; 
if it is to shun it then none can aid you, not 
even your Creator, for by his gifts to you he 
has limited his own power over you. Let 
your own soul answer to itself which it chooses. 
If it is to seek spiritual understanding, then 
let me lead you to it, in my own way, neither 
urging nor exhorting, neither contending nor 
disputing, but simply bringing to your thoughts 
the beautiful truth of our Creator's unchanging 
love, revealed through all that he has created, 
and by all that he has spoken. If what I 
shall say meets your disapproval, let it pass 
unaccepted, for no soul can accept every truth, 
as truth, nor reject every error as error; but 
every soul can accept enough of truth and re- 
ject enough of error, to satisfy its longings for 
spiritual understanding; and this is all that 
is required of it in human life. To follow me 
thus is not the only road to spiritual under- 
standing. It is only one more added to the 
many already open to you. If you are earn- 
estly seeking this truth along another way, 
turn not from that search or lessen its earnest- 



138 THE CONTINUITY OF 

ness. That which is the object of your soul's pur- 
suit is the truth into which I hope to lead you, if 
you fail in other efforts. There is nothing 
promised you which is not now realized by 
many, and that ma) 7 not be realized by you 
independent of anything I ma) 7 say. That I 
can make its realization easier is my hope. 
To this study then I invite you. Realizing 
what success, and what failure means, to your 
soul, I shall speak not one word without a 
purpose, and that purpose will be to make the 
comprehension of spiritual truth easier to the 
human soul. Should this purpose lead me to 
levity, to romance, to references wholly per- 
sonal remember through it all that behind 
these things this purpose lies. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 139 



CHAPTER VI. 

The thought must have come to many, in 
what then is the pleasure of Heaven greater 
than is the pleasure of earth, and in what is 
the unhappiness of Hell greater than is the 
unhappiness of earth. It is to answer this 
thought, whether it has troubled any who read 
this or not, that I now give the truths stated 
in this chapter. That they may in a measure 
satisfy this thought, is one purpose of them; 
that they may prepare the minds of those 
who read them for truths that they may lead 
up to, is another. If they appear to you to 
be out of harmony with either purpose, then 
let the responsibility rest wholly upon the soul 
who is unseen and unknown, by whatever name 
or personality you choose to call it, for the 
thoughts are not the thoughts of him who re- 
cords them, neither would they be recorded if 
his own desire was the governing motive with 
him. This I say and know, and this he will 
confirm, if he shall ever assume to confirm or 



140 THE CONTINUITY OF 

deny this statement. It was not till after my 
death that I had any comprehension of the 
power he uses. My last conscious words on 
earth, were a promise to remain close to him 
if within my power. I meant it when I pro- 
mised, and I have faithfully kept that promise. 
To those who know what this means, it will 
cause no surprise, but to all others it will 
either be a startling assertion, or a denied 
truth. At the time of my death I was a dis- 
believer in the power of spiritual beings mak- 
ing their existence known to human souls, a 
disbeliever because I had never experienced it 
and because I could not accept it as truth. 
When my soul passed into conscious spiritual 
existence, I first realized its truth; but that 
realization came with another which -was as 
plain to me as was the realization of any nat- 
ural law in earth. It was that I was cut off 
from manifesting myself to him, by a law, 
that was from the beginning of human life on 
earth, and which must continue while that life 
remains. Here then stood the immutable law 
of my Creator betwixt me and the one I loved 
on earth. His power I now understood. It 
was the same power I now possessed, prema- 
turely developed in his human life. I sought 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 141 

to discover a reason for its development. I 
studied the record of his life, as I had learned 
it very imperfectly, although "Bone of his bone, 
and flesh of his flesh, " his wife for fifteen years. 
It was at first a mystery to me. Then was re- 
vealed to me what I had never before known, 
that those who are in the spiritual state called 
Hades, Sheol, or Hell, neither know nor re- 
gard the law which held me back from him. 
This was the first truth that I acquired bear- 
ing upon this restrictive law. The next was 
that his soul had resisted for years the assaults 
of that spiritual philosophy, which originates 
in Hell and is accepted by so many in earth, 
to whom it has been given directly or indirectly. 
I saw that I had unwittingly been a party to 
these assaults by aiding him in the develop- 
ment of this power. I saw further that his 
life had been one continual preparation against 
these assaults, and for resistence to them. I 
saw that he was safely through his trial, and 
had escaped its harm. Here I should have 
rested, forever grateful to our Father that he 
had escaped, if he had rested. In the hours 
of the deepest sorrow of his life, could he have 
rested I should have been most happy, in the 
knowledge of it. But for him there was yet 



142 THE CONTINUITY OF 

no rest. I knew of his resolve and prayed our 
Father that he might turn from it. Then I 
knew that he had thrown the whole power of a 
will that never yet had failed of its purpose 
into an effort to break down the barriers that 
prevented him alone and unaided in the exer- 
cise of this power. I feared his success. I 
saw one yield, and then another, till he had 
acquired what he sought. Then I saw him again 
contending and arguing with, ridiculing, de- 
riding, or defying, as it pleased his mood, those 
spiritual beings who were ever ready to assert 
their presence. These were strange truths to 
me although nothing new to him. They led 
me to study the purpose of his life, of my 
own, and of this premature development of a 
spiritual power in him; and as I studied, truths 
which I now dare not speak, came to me so 
plainly that I could not doubt them. Then 
there was opened up before my spiritual un- 
derstanding such a revelation of God's purpose 
in the creation of his sou) with its endow- 
ments, of my soul with its endowments, of our 
united lives on earth, of my death and his be- 
reavement that I could not disbelieve or hesi- 
tate to accept my part. In this there was re- 
vealed to me another law, which is applicable 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



143 



to few on earth. I studied wherein it might 
be applicable to him, and as I studied light 
came to me concerning it, for it stands re- 
vealed in the Word of God, although not un- 
derstood by men. If he had the strength to 
bring himself within this law, then I would 
be from under the other. In such a position 
had he placed himself by his own act that to 
escape this trial was now as dangerous as to 
endure it. He had done this voluntarily, for 
up to this time I had not sought to reveal 
myself to him by any thought or word. I saw 
him approach the inevitable judgment of a su- 
preme trial. It was my opportunity and I ac- 
cepted it. Unknown to him I led him into a 
preparation for it, revealing myself only so far 
as it was required, and then concealing even 
what I had revealed. When that hour came 
and I saw his unswerving nature true to its 
Creator, then I knew that I was free from the 
law which had separated us and which still 
separated me from all other human beings. 
That hour broke the spiritual silence that 
death had interposed. His soul no longer re- 
quired the protection of the law which had 
separated us, and I was thereby freed from it. 
This was the beginning of a new life to him; 



144: THE CONTINUITY OF 

it was the beginning of a new joy to me. That 
life and that jo}' have been unbroken since. 
That those who desire may know some little 
of each, I now assert my right to refer to 
some things which illustrate both. If it should 
be thought impossible that such a life should 
be lived, then pass this chapter by unheeded. 
It contributes nothing to the happiness of either 
that you should believe it, and it takes noth- 
ing from that happiness that you should dis- 
believe it, therefore those whose life it is seek 
neither belief nor disbelief concerning it. 

My first effort was to reveal myself to him 
with such certainty that I might bestow upon 
him the happiness of such assurance. This 
was not an easy thing to do. If you will stop 
to consider by what means you would identify 
a person on earth, if in your communication 
with that person, you were deprived of sight, 
hearing, feeling, and all physical sources of 
knowledge, then you may form some idea of 
the difficulty of such identification by him of 
me. The first thought probably that suggests 
itself, is that I could remind him of the little 
or of the important events that happened to 
us in our lives together. This I tried, and 
without number recalled such incidents, often 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 14=5 

in the most unexpected manner. I commented 
on our mutual friends and our relation to them 
past and present, upon the incidents of his 
daily life, at home, at his office, socially, finan- 
cially, religiously; I followed him upon his 
journeys away from home and recounted that 
which had happened, even things forgotten or 
overlooked by him at the time. I gave him 
words of true affection, love that was beyond 
the power that was mine on earth. Then I 
gave him assurances that were spiritually ap- 
parent to his understanding. Through all this 
through months, he doubted my identity. To 
doubt was his nature and to change that na- 
ture Was' alike impossible to him and to me. 
How then did I at last succeed in revealing 
myself to his soul beyond a shadow of doubt. 
By little things which showed my love. Just one 
or two instances to illustrate this thought. 
One cold winter evening he went to his room 
to talk with me. The room was but partially 
warmed and he was chilly. I greeted him 
with words of love and then refused to talk 
with him while he remained in so uncomforta- 
ble and unsafe physical condition. It was a 
disappointment to him and he persisted. I 
refused, and that ended it, for without my 



146 THE CONTINUITY OF 

concurrent will he know he was as powerless 
as I was without his. At another time his 
thoughts revealed to me that he was appre- 
hensive of unusual severity of cold during the 
night. His room was the most exposed and 
the coldest of his house. Those occupied by 
the other members of his family were much 
more comfortable for such a night as he appre- 
hended. It was not a matter of discomfort, 
or inconvenience to any member of his family 
that one of those rooms should be vacated for 
him that night and that he should occupy it, 
his own remaining unoccupied. This I insisted 
should be done. At first he refused me most 
positively; then I reasoned with him,* begging 
him for his own health and comfort to do it. 
The old love which he recognized in such re- 
quests and the persistence with which I urged 
my wishes upon him, revealed Julia to him 
more plainly than all else I could say or do. 
He yielded to this request because he saw that 
it was love which prompted it and prudence 
on his part dictated such a course. It was the 
powerof such little things that won confidence 
and full recognition. Then I began to lay be- 
fore him greater truths than he had yet dreamed 
of, duties that came with opportunities, duties 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 147 

that were the outgrowth of opportunities; 
showing him that the truths which he had 
already learned and those which were now 
within his reach, belonged to all who should 
seek them and not to himself alone; that a 
time would come when a duty would become 
so plain, that he could not escape it, and that 
duty would be to give some of his experiences 
and some of these truths to the public. Month 
after month I kept this truth before him and 
to fix it firmly I had him write out in detail 
all that is contained in this volume, and much 
that is not contained in it. That manuscript 
he never decided to publish, and would not 
now publish it in full if I insisted upon it. 
It is the basis of these thoughts and that is 
what I intended it should be. It is now obso- 
lete, having served its purpose, and he will 
destroy or preserve it as his own judgment 
dictates. That part of it not given is so 
largely personal, that with it the public has 
but little concern. To those to whom personal 
interest, personal relationships, and personal 
associations in human life, bound me by a 
personal love, and to those to whom some 
words from me might make plain the mysteries 
of their own thoughts, I have dictated words 



148 THE CONTINUITY OF 

which appear to me either comforting or prof- 
itable. The personal relations of such, with 
him to whom I gave them are such that they 
need not hesitate to ask and receive them, if 
they have either interest or confidence enough 
to desire them; otherwise they will neither 
benefit nor interest. 

My thoughts after death turned quickly to 
those on earth who were so dear to me. Their 
happiness and their welfare were as precious 
to me then as they ever had been. Had I the 
power to aid them how quickly I would have 
done it. I recognized the separation and at 
first supposed that it was final, so far as their 
earthly lives were concerned. Then came the 
knowledge that [ have referred to, and with it 
the thought that could I be freed from the law 
which separated me from him whose powers 
were then revealed to me, I could in some 
measure guard and subserve both their happi- 
ness and their welfare. As I watched his pro- 
gress toward that which could alone free me 
from that law, I matured my judgment. as to 
what I should urge upon him. That judgment 
was founded upon knowledge acquired in hu- 
man life, and upon knowledge revealed to me 
in spiritual life. I could read his thoughts 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



149 



as in human life I had read books. I studied 
them long before he knew that I was near 
him. His thoughts were first of my loss to 
him, then of my loss to the one who was now 
the nearest of all on earth, our only child, 
then of the long dreary life that lay before 
them. The lifting of the shadow from off that 
life was not then within the range of his 
thoughts for he then scarcely hoped that I 
should be revealed to him or that another 
should ever take my place to make glad a des- 
olate household. It was thus that I measured 
his thoughts, his hopes, his fears, when at last 
I found that I was free to reveal myself to 
him. This I did not suddenly or plainly, for 
to do so was impossible, not because my state- 
ments lacked plainness, but because he lacked 
belief in them. I quickly announced that an- 
other should assume the relation to them from 
which death had removed me, and should do 
for them what I could no longer do, minister 
to their human wants, and be to them that 
which affection makes human beings to each 
other, companions. I told him that in the 
wide world were many noble souls to whom 
purity of purpose, fidelity to duties, imposed 
or assumed, and wealth of human and divine 



150 THE CONTINUITY OF 

affection, belonged as their created endow- 
ments, but of all whose hearts had ever been 
made known to me on earth, or in spiritual 
life, there was one, whom I had known as a 
child maturing into womanhood, of whom I 
had been a loved and a loving counsellor, she 
the confiding pupil, who would of all others 
become to him most nearly what I had been. 
That no human being other than she, could be 
to him and to our daughter, what this woman 
might become. Fifteen years of time had sep- 
arated her from me, so far as human associa- 
tion goes, but time had neither lessened her 
love for me, nor my admiration of her wifely 
qualities. All this was strange to him; he 
had never seen the one I told him of; he knew 
her name as one of fifty or a hundred others 
of my former pupils in a distant state, but 
neither knew more nor less of her than of the 
others. He heard my words and called them, 
folly; the thought that he should ever seek 
the hand of one so utterly unknown. 

Night after night, as he came to his room 
and talked with me I kept this name before 
him. I wove thoughts of her into my prayers 
for him and for our child. I warned, I coun- 
seled, and at last I upbraided. The human 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 151 

heart yields more readily to thoughts of love 
than of any other and my purpose was accom- 
plished; I had him interested with thoughts 
of this one person. The power which is wield- 
ed by the pen becomes mighty, when the pen 
becomes an exponent of a sincere desire. That 
sincere desire on his part was for personal 
acquaintance. Therefore in the course of 
months the formal consolations brought by my 
death and the formal answer, had matured ac- 
quaintance, in all but sight and personal asso- 
ciations. 

A train of cars stopped as usual one morn- 
ing at a little station in East Tennessee. 
On the platform among others stood a woman, 
wearing a white rose on her bosom, that she 
might be known to one who stepped from the 
cars, to her equally unknown. 

Thus they met for the first time in their 
lives, utter strangers in all except that knowl- 
edge which one heart can give to another, al- 
though hundreds of miles separate them. 
There is nothing so new and yet nothing so 
old as the story of that love which binds hu- 
man hearts together; and of this story nothing 
more need be written. This much serves to 
illustrate the truth which 1 am seeking to im- 



152 



THE CONTINUITY OF 



press. Of the influence which caused him to 
seek out and then to woo one so strange, she 
remained in entire ignorance till after their 
marriage. After the matter from which this 
volume has been taken, had been prepared in 
1886, I gave to him a series of thoughts in- 
tended alone for this one soul whom I then 
saw would take the place made vacant by my 
death. Their purpose was to bring her mind 
by slow degrees to realize a truth, for which 
she had not only no preparation, but against 
which the prejudices and the teachings of her 
entire life had fortified her. All this we talked 
over together. I promised that we would win 
her assistance and her assent; that I knew 
enough of her great heart's love for me, and of 
the prudence of him through whom alone I 
could reach her, to assure me of this result-. 
Yet it was plainly agreed and covenanted be- 
tween us, that if our united efforts in this di- 
rection failed, and the knowledge of this truth 
and the exercise of this power, rendered her 
unhappy, that I on my part would never again 
reveal myself to him, through this power 
whether he continued to exercise it or not; and 
he on his part, that he would cease to use 
this power, and would never again seek the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 153 

consolation of my presence through it. A 
covenant means more than the thoughtless un- 
derstand. It cannot be broken without sin. 
This I knew and this he had then learned im- 
perfectly. 

This covenant I required of him and this 
covenant I gave to him, before he entered into 
covenant with her as husband and wife. 

Her happiness therefore was to be by our 
will as it is by God's law, paramount to that 
of any other soul, wherever existing. There 
is not everything connected with the philoso- 
phy of this truth that is calculated to make 
those who have this knowledge happy. His 
human life imposes upon him human respon- 
sibilities both to himself and to those who by 
nature look to him, calls for human compan- 
ionship to share these responsibilities, and 
charges him with duties which pertain to his 
social and business relations of life. If this 
power and its enjoyment conflicts with either 
then it must be subordinated to them, even to 
its entire destruction. This truth he then rec- 
ognized, and had deliberately accepted. It 
was in this state of mind that the hour ap- 
proached when he was to leave his home to 
enter upon new relationships under new cove- 



154 THE CONTINUITY OF 

nants. The papers being prepared for her who 
was to become his wife, occupied the spare 
hours he gave to this work to the last. That 
last hour was reserved for thoughts which were 
intended for none but the two who were con- 
scious of them. The future was before him, 
darkly uncertain, the past was radiant with 
the thoughts of our happy hours together. 
This hour between the then future and the 
past, is one of the few hours of his life, the 
impress of which that life must ever bear. It 
tested the strength of his nature, his belief in 
spiritual existence and in spiritual influences, 
his belief in me as one .whose first thought 
and highest desire, was his happiness and wel- 
fare, his confidence in his own judgment, and 
in the wisdom of the step he was about to 
take, as all these had never been tested before. 
Do you wonder that emotions such as few ever 
have or ever can experience, were the out- 
growth of that hour's talk with me? Do you 
wonder that in that hour he lived over the past 
of a strange but happy life, and peered wist- 
fully into a hidden future? A future which he 
was powerless to read, but which I could read 
to him mysteriously. It is in such an hour 
that it is permitted to those to whom God 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 155 

gives understanding to reveal it to those who 
in their weakness, and in their hour of trial 
cry out for it. This I then did as was my right 
and power, and with an exclamation that 
thrilled his soul through and through, and yet 
does at its recall, I dismissed him. Months 
after when she who had become his wife had 
learned the truth from its beginning to that 
hour, and had given her sincere consent, was 
I permitted to greet him whom I had thus 
dismissed. Since then together we three have 
worked, as we two had worked before, and as 
the years go by the revelation of God's love 
in ordering the affairs of human life, for the 
welfare and highest possible happiness of his 
creatures, is made plainer to those on earth as 
it is to me in Heaven. 



156 THE CONTINUITY OF 



CHAPTER VII. 

The ultimate destiny of the human soul is 
a question which has interested the mind of 
man since it was first created. To that thought 
I ask the attention of those who have followed 
me thus far. 

It is generally assumed that the life which 
is bestowed on man is everlasting. This as- 
sumption springs from the intuitive desire of 
the human soul that it should be so. This 
desire is bestowed by the Creator upon the 
soul, and this being admitted the truth of that 
which is universally and intuitively desired, 
can not be doubted. The eternal love of our 
Creator forbids that he should bestow by cre- 
ation a desire that is impossible of realization. 
This is the same argument by which I sought 
to establish the truth of spiritual existence, 
and it is as strong in the latter as in the for- 
mer application. To assert that existence is 
everlasting amounts to nothing at all as proof 
of it. But to show you that it is taught by 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 157 

the nature of man as it has been created, is 
proof of it until a stronger argument can be 
shown, why that life should not be everlasting. 
What is it to live forever? Measure the pow- 
ers of the human intellect, and answer me, 
whether it is within these powers to compre- 
hend it. Whatever your answer, I declare that 
it is not. The human- soul is endowed with all 
the powers it ever can possess. Some are de- 
veloped in human life and some remain unde- 
veloped until spiritual existence develops 
them. These latter are however, not intellect- 
ual powers, and the measure of man's intel- 
lectual ability to comprehend life eternal, 
without beginning and everlasting, without 
end, will not be greater in spiritual existence 
than it is or may be in human existence. 
Therefore when you measure the ability, in 
this respect of the developed human intellect, 
you measure with equal certainty the ability 
of the same intellect in spiritual existence. 
Can, therefore, the most perfectly developed 
human intellect conceive of an existence which 
is without beginning? It is impossible that it 
should thus conceive. The thought is beyond 
the limit of its highest powers. Neither can 
it any more conceive of a life which shall 



158 THE CONTINUITY OF 

have no end, than it can of an existence which 
is without beginning. The intellect which is 
given to the human soul can conceive of a 
span of existence, possibly varying somewhat 
with the strength and development of the in- 
tellectual powers, but varying but little be- 
tween the highest and the lowest development. 
The human intellect is limited by its own ex- 
periences and by the experiences of other be- 
ings possessing intellects like unto its own. 
The united experience of all such intellects 
is the sum of all human knowledge, and is the 
ultimate measure of human knowledge. To 
this measure spiritual experiences can add 
nothing. The experiences of spiritual exist- 
ence pertain not to intellectual power, but to 
spiritual understanding alone. Therefore, if 
the thought of an everlasting existence, is be- 
yond the power of human and spiritual intel- 
lect, its conception will be forever an impos- 
sibility to the soul. By what then will the 
soul ever be limited? It will look forward 
into life to come until its power faileth it; it 
will look backward to its beginning as long as 
it has power to perceive the beginning, and 
the span between these two limits is all of 
eternity that the soul can ever know. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 159 

Do I mean that it may sometime fail to con- 
ceive of its own beginning and of its life on 
earth? If the measure of intellectual power 
is as I have stated it to be, then this truth is 
undeniable. I affirm both because I can con- 
ceive of both being true. Intellect is assisted 
by memory; it can act without memory in all 
things where memory is not called into use, 
but in nothing that is past can it act without 
memory. Then what is memory, what its pur- 
pose and its function? Memory is that which 
unites the past with the present, by preserv- 
ing to the soul the experiences and the im- 
pressions of the past. Its purpose is that the 
span of life may be -lengthened backward, that 
the soul may profit to-day by the experiences 
and impressions of yesterday; and its function 
is to preserve such experiences and impres- 
sions to the soul, so long as they may be prof- 
itable to it. When it has fulfilled its purpose, 
and the experiences and impressions of the 
soul cease to profit it, then memory's function 
ceases. We call it forgetfulness. It is noth- 
ing more nor less than the burial of a dead 
past in that grave from which there is no res- 
urrection. This is experience to the human 
race, in the short span of one human life. 



160 THE CONTINUITY OF 

But to make it plainer, we take memory in its 
earliest existence. There is a period in the 
life of every human being where memory fails 
to recall existence. The impressions and ex- 
periences of the life which preceded this 
period are not recalled by memory. Why? Be- 
cause they are of no value to the soul. There 
is no period of the human life of which this 
truth cannot be spoken. It is true after the 
first conscious experiences and impressions of 
human life, and it is true forever after that 
throughout time and eternity. The infant, re- 
calls impressions and experiences while help- 
less in its mother's arms, but such impressions 
and experiences must then be of very recent 
occurrence, to be recalled, because the opening 
intellect can not be then benefited, by those 
more remote. As that intellect develops, 
those which are more remote no longer benefit 
it and they are forgotten, and by so much is 
this opening period of conscious existence 
drawn forward out of the past, towards the 
then present. During the first year of life this 
period of conscious existence advances nearly 
as rapidly as does the period of present exist- 
ence ; during the next few years the former 
slackens its pace while the latter continues con- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 161 

stant, and thus it is continued through human 
life on earch; memory ever serving the soul's 
intellectual power, by reproducing that which 
may benefit it, and dropping out of its grasp 
all that is useless. Shall there ever come to 
the soul a period of existence wherein the ex- 
periences and impressions of human life can no 
longer benefit it? Answer this question for 
yourself. If there does, then ask not whether 
memory retains them. You know the answer 
as I know it. There never has been created, 
and there never will be created, any physical 
substance, any intellectual endowment, any 
human faculty, passion, power, or sensation, or 
any spiritual power or endowment, that shall 
not cease to exist as soon as it has fulfilled the 
purpose of its creation, and thereby become 
useless. Measure your every power human and 
spiritual by this rule and you have all the 
knowledge which I now have, as to which sur- 
vives human death, and which are everlast- 
ing. My knowledge differs alone from yours 
in the extent to which I am able to apply 
this rule, and you are not. If I could teach 
you all I know of the application of this rule 
to each, then you would know as clearly as I 
now know the destiny of each. To the degree 



162 THE CONTINUITY OF 

to which such teaching is possible, I will lead 
all those who seek to follow me. It is a labor 
of years to those who undertake it. This, ex- 
perience has taught, one as it will teach all 
who follow this pathway to spiritual knowl- 
edge. The acquirement of it cannot be hast- 
ened, neither can the method of that acquire- 
ment be changed. From what I have said it 
follows, whether you perceive the truth or not, 
that in the everlasting existence of the human 
soul there will come a period when that soul 
will recall alone its spiritual existence, and its 
spiritual impressions. Then it will no longer 
have need of those which were human, or ac- 
quired through human life, and memory shall 
fail to preserve them. Then human life and 
all that it bestows shall be buried in the grave 
of an eternity that is past, but the soul's con- 
scious life and individual identity, shall not 
be effected thereby in any degree whatever. 
Are you any the less conscious of your present 
existence, and individuality, because you have 
forgotten that same existence and individuality 
when you were a babe in your mother's arms? 
Then neither shall you ever be any the less 
conscious of either because of this truth. 

Now if I have made this truth clear to your 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 163 

understanding then may I also make clear an- 
other truth, for which purpose alone I gave 
you this one. The thoughts, which I have al- 
ready advanced show that there are no horrors 
in Hell such as are depicted to many human 
beings, and in some form or other to all human 
beings; and lest some soul should deceive 
itself into believing that there is no Hell I 
present the truths which follow. I speak noth- 
ing but what I know; nothing but what every 
soul knows which has entered into that spir- 
itual existence called spiritual life or Heaven. 
It is as distinctively the knowledge of that 
existence, as physical knowledge is of that of 
earth. It pertains to that existence alone as 
physical knowledge pertains to human life 
alone. It is knowledge which pertains not to 
that spiritual existence called spiritual death 
or Hell, neither can it be acquired in that state. 
Therefore no soul which exists in that state 
will ever admit or believe it. It is as posi- 
tively hidden from such souls, as are the ex- 
periences and the knowledge of the Christian 
believer on earth, who knows the pardon of 
his sins, and experiences love divine, hidden 
from those who believe not in such experiences 
and have not such knowledge. Can you con- 



164 THE CONTINUITY OF 

vince one who has no belief in such experiences 
or such knowledge, of their truth? Then be- 
lieve me when I say that it is equally impos- 
sible to persuade one in Hell of the truth of 
what I now say. This impossibility exists be- 
cause of the spiritual nature of those who en- 
ter that spiritual state, which nature is the 
result of sin and is of their own making; and 
that this effect of sin should follow sin, is to 
those who sin not the clearest proof of our 
Creator's eternal love that he has given. 
The effect of sin is not a punishment, unless 
the effect of the violation of a physical law is 
a punishment. Some thoughtlessly call it such. 
This is not true. When you thrust your hand 
into fire and suffer physical pain, is that pain 
a punishment for the violation of a physical 
law? Is it not rather the result of that viola- 
tion? If there was no such result what would 
be the effect of the physical law thus violated? 
Physical destruction of members, loss of phy- 
sical powers, uncertainty, insecurity, and con- 
stant fear. Think of this carefully and then 
answer your own soul whether it does not 
manifest a Father's care and a Father's love 
that this physical result should follow a viola- 
tion of this physical law. If it does then the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 165 

spiritual result which follows the violation of 
a spiritual law is no less a manifestation to 
us of that same Father's care and love for 
those who violate his spiritual law. 

Here then is the dividing line between the 
two spiritual states which I have named. It 
is the power to know and recognize the results 
of disobedience to a spiritual law, coupled with 
a willing obedience to that law. The soul 
may know but one spiritual law, but if it will- 
ingly obeys that one it cannot disobey those 
it knows not of. If it knows many spiritual 
laws and disobeys but one, the effect is that 
of disobedience to all. This is as true of spir- 
itual law in human as in spiritual existence. 
Therefore in spiritual existence effect is 
suffered only according to knowledge of 
the laws violated, and obedience is rewarded, 
without reference to such knowledge. Herein 
lies the only difference between the vio- 
lation of a physical law and its penalty, 
and the violation of a spiritual law and 
its penalty. Now with this explanation I 
will undertake to follow the course of a 
soul which enters that spiritual state de- 
nominated spiritual death, Hades, or Hell. 
That which I speak is not my experience, 



166 THE CONTINUITY OF 

neither will it ever be, unless 1 should of my 
own free will disobey that which I now know 
to be my Creator's commands. If I should 
do this then all that I now declare would be- 
come to me personal experience. I have the 
power to obey or to disobey now just the 
same as I had in earth, and disobedience 
now would be sin, just as it would have been 
had I disobeyed in earth, and the effect of sin 
is the same whether committed in human or 
in spiritual existence. I speak therefore what 
I know, not what I experience; and if you ask 
how I know it without experiencing it, my 
answer is as yours would be, if you were asked 
to describe the hopes and the fears, the joy 
and the sorrow, the mental and the spiritual 
states of those on earth, who are lost to all 
hopes, are harrassed by all fears, who are 
strangers to all joys and are burdened with 
all sorrows, which human life may produce; 
and then were asked how you know that your 
recital is true, you not having experienced 
what you describe. Your source of knowledge 
and my source of knowledge would be the 
same, and your judgments no more certainly 
accurate than mine are. To the powers through 
which I would have gained such knowledge 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 167 

in earth I have added those powers of which 
you can have no knowledge yet; but unless 
my statements shall eventually appear to you 
to be reasonable, they are entitled to no 
weight whatever. I give them now; I shall 
establish their quality of reasonableness here- 
after, if it has not already been done. 

I take as an example of all who enter that 
spiritual state, one, thought to be an exem- 
plary character, pure in the noble instincts of 
his human nature, filled with loving kindness 
toward his fellow men, honest as it is within 
his power to be, and obedient to all that soci- 
ety demands of its honored members. This 
soul lives a life of human contentment and of 
human happiness. His contentment is because 
of his honesty of purpose, and his human hap- 
piness is because of his rational enjoyment of 
human conditions. His spiritual state is not 
as are his intellectual and his physical states. 
His spiritual powers have not developed as 
his intellectual powers have and they have been 
subordinated to the intellectual nature. He 
believes in a future existence, and that he 
shall live forever. Beyond this point he cares 
not to believe and will not seek to believe. 
He worships not because he knows nothing to 



168 THE CONTINUITY OF 

worship greater than himself, and is too noble 
to worship self. Ask him if there is a God, 
a great First Cause, and he will answer that 
there is. Ask him what are His attributes, 
what His nature, and he will answer that he 
knows not, because it is beyond the power of 
human understanding to know this. Ask him 
if God has not revealed these through his 
Written Word, and through his Son, who 
being God lived as man, and he will answer; 
"This may all be true, but I do not know it, 
neither do I believe that which I cannot know. 
If it is true I will sometime find it out. If 
it be not true I will be none the worse off for 
not believing it. I neither accept such belief 
nor do 1 reject it. Let eternity reveal to me 
its truth or falsity. That I maybe true to my 
better nature, as I find it given to me, and 
may fulfill all the duties that appear from it 
to rest upon me, is my religion, and it is 
enough. In it I am content to live and die, 
believing that He who gave me being, will re- 
ward me according to my human life." This 
soul dies to earth. It lives in spiritual exist- 
ence, unchanged except by the added powers 
of spiritual existence, and by the loss of those 
which pertain to human life. In its first con- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 169 

sciousness of this new existence, it is happy, 
happy because it realizes that for which it 
hoped, and in which it believed, continued 
conscious life, distinct in its individuality and 
free in its powers. Could that soul now com- 
municate its thoughts to earth, it would say 
that it was happy; that it was in Heaven and 
that all other souls were there also, for it 
recognizes no difference between itself and any 
other soul therefore because it is now happy, 
it believes that all other souls are likewise 
happy. Now wherein is this soul deceived 
that it should thus mistake its true spiritual 
state. It now knows no more of the love of 
its Creator than it knew in earth, therefore it 
accepts not the truth beyond its acceptance 
of it in earth. It feels no punishment. It 
knows nothing concerning punishment, there- 
fore it feels an assurance that there is no pun- 
ishment awaiting it, and if this be true, then 
it believes itself to be in that spiritual state 
called Heaven, and that there is no other spir- 
itual state. These impressions come because 
it has no knowledge of any other spiritual 
state, than that in which it now exists; therefore 
it believes that no other does exist, for it is 
now as it was in earth, incapable of believing 



170 THE CONTINUITY OF 

in anything it cannot know. This was its vol- 
untary spiritual state in earth; it has become 
its absolute spiritual state beyond the power 
of will. Life thus begins in this existence as 
it ended in its earthly, with neither more nor 
less of happiness. I call it happiness because 
that best describes it to human thought. It 
is the feeling of contentment which comes of 
the recollections of a well spent human life, 
and is not the result of new impressions or of 
new knowledge, other than that of continued 
existence. Gradually these feelings lose con- 
trol of the soul; it begins to wonder what it is 
now living for; what eternity to come is to 
reveal to it; from what source it is to derive 
its happiness. All the human conditions of 
happiness are forever removed, and what is 
given in their stead? The power to think re- 
mains: the power of memory is as it was in 
earth, neither greater nor less. It runs back 
along its life as far as memory can carry it, 
then it stops and asks itself, what was before 
this? Whence came this immortal soul? 
Whence this living power I call myself? Is 
it of nature a development? Then what power 
brought Nature into existence? Whence its 
power to develop such as I am; and if this 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 171 

knowledge is denied me, may I not know why 
Nature brought me forth out of its impenetra- 
ble mystery? I lived in earth but many who 
share my existence here, have no conscious 
knowledge of an earthly life; for what were 
such given life? I live, I think, I remember 
now what I must sometime even fail to know, 
that my existence was begun in earth, and is 
this all I shall forever know? Then my life is 
both purposeless and useless. Is a human be- 
ing happy when this thought has once pos- 
sessed him? No more can a spiritual being 
be happy when possessed of it. And this is 
the first step down form that spiritual exalta- 
tion which this soul called Heaven. This is 
its first failure to satisfy its own desire for 
knowledge; and this failure is its first realiza- 
tion that it is powerless to attain any knowl- 
edge whatever. It is cut off from the physical 
world as completely as if that world had no 
existence. It is as impossible for it to per- 
ceive any physical substance or phenomenon, 
as it is for the physical senses to discern spir- 
itual existence. It is therefore forever cut off 
from all development or increase of physical 
or human knowledge. It is as completely 
shut off from the acquirement of all spiritual 



172 THE CONTINUITY OF 

knowledge, because spiritual understanding 
can only come through a knowledge of the 
soul's Creator, which this soul possesses not. 
With this only resource of understanding for- 
ever closed to it, this soul now begins to real- 
ize that this life it lives, is becoming a use- 
less, hopeless, changeless, existence; change- 
less only as it seems to it, for it is unconscious 
of the changes as they come over it. The 
opening ecstasy of its new existence has now 
changed to dull monotony. Thus it lives, on, 
on, on, as if this life was to be forever un- 
changing. Then comes the restless longing 
for something other than this purposeless, this 
void existence. It longs for the extinction of 
this life, even if that be annihilation. Then 
it seeks self-destruction. Even this is denied 
it, for it is as powerless to end its life as it 
was to create it. It has thus passed by slow 
degrees from what was to it, the ecstasy of a 
new found existence, into a state bordering 
on despair. It would not stop there if it 
could. Unless the soul be really happy in its 
existing life, whether that life be human or 
spiritual, it will ever seek a change. You may 
answer whether this is true in human life, and 
I will declare that it is true in spiritual exist- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 173 

ence. What can bring a change to such an 
existence? One thing only, and that is to 
sink into greater uncertainty, and into deeper 
gloom. This it does because it cannot rest, 
and this is the only change that is or ever can 
be possible to it. This is one step lower, and 
only the second from its exaltation. A fear 
comes over it. Fear! what should it fear? Not 
annihilation, for this it craves; it is the unde- 
fined dread, which springs from uncertainty. 
Have you ever felt a dread of death because 
of its uncertainty? If you have then you have 
had a foretaste of what this dread is to those 
to whom it comes. It is the same nature 
which dreads on earth and dreads in spiritual 
existence, and the dread in both existences is 
founded upon uncertaint}'. Does a knowledge 
of the soul's Creator take away this dread on 
earth? Let those answer who know their 
Creator, and let all others keep silent. Such 
knowledge is forever cut off from this soul, 
therefore this dread is everlasting as is its 
life. 

The monotony of the first stage of this life 
is relieved by the fears of the second. Un- 
changed to itself, yet not unchanged, this soul 
still lives on, and on, and on, till its longings 



174: THE CONTINUITY OF 

for change again revive and render it desper- 
ate in its desire for self-destruction, and in its 
desperation another step is taken. To fear are 
added forebodings; of what, it is not possible 
to describe for this soul knows not itself what 
is possible should come to it. But there are 
forebodings which it never knew before, such 
as earth cannot know; these add a horror to 
this existence, and this soul is in the third 
stage of it. In fear and dread, and in the hor- 
ror of forebodings, it lives on, and on, and 
on, till again this existence becomes unbeara- 
ble, and it seeks any change that is possible. 
What is it that it is possible to add to such a 
life? The certainty that it is u?iendi?ig. This 
comes because it has found no end and can 
find none, and from its own experience, then 
it despairs of ever ending this existence. 
This certainty, added to this existence, is its 
fourth stage, and is more grievous than all 
which has preceded it. Now launching for- 
ward into unending existence, this soul is lost, 
forever lost. There yet remain for it changes 
which can never end, but which human thought 
cannot follow. These changes are ever into 
deeper Hell, for this is Hell. Not one iota of 
all that is depicted is a punishment from the 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 175 

Creator of this soul. It is the effect, of which 
disobedience is the cause. It is the darkness 
which follows the withdrawal of the source of 
light. The ignorance, which knows no source 
of knowledge. It is the soul of man without 
its Creator revealed to it. This and nothing 
more; and it is all that eternal love can do 
for the soul which knows not that love. To 
know what it has lost would add torments to 
terrors, would add remorse to forebodings, 
would add intensity to the sufferings which it 
now realizes must be forever. Therefore its 
Creator has withheld and will forever with- 
hold this knowledge from this soul, and it will 
forever believe and declare that there is no 
existence, other than its existence; that all 
suffer as it suffers; that there is no happiness; 
no Creator, no Redeemer; that if there is a 
God he is alike unknown to all who have life 
and is no differently worshiped by one than 
by all. In ignorance Hell teaches earth, when 
ever and wherever it can get audience, and 
earth believes because Hell is spiritual in its 
existence. In this lies the danger which has 
been so frequently refered to. If any word I 
utter departs from a reasonable interpretation 
of the revelation of God, and of spiritual truth 



176 THE CONTINUITY OF 

to man, contained in his written Word, and 
manifested in the life of his Son, then regard 
it as from this source also, and shun it as you 
would shun that which I have described unto 
you, for into such real existence it would then 
lead you. But if what I have said or may 
hereafter say aids you to comprehend the 
Written Word and the Human Life which 
alone reveal God to man, then add to that 
comprehension, true belief; that belief which 
yields the fruit of righteousness, which is love 
toward God, which is knowledge of him, 
which is love toward all whom he has created, 
whether they know him, or know him not. 
By this rule judge your existence, which is 
and which is to be; will it become what I have 
described, or what I am about to describe. 

To illustrate the spiritual state called Heaven, 
as best it may be possible for me to do it, I 
take another soul and trace its course through 
earthly into spiritual existence. Such soul I 
will suppose to be not the purest nor the best 
that earth has produced, not even the one 
whom the world would pronounce most perfect 
in its purity. That I may more forcibly illus- 
trate this truth I take the lowest that may en- 
ter into this existence. This is what the world 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 177 

would say of him. He is not bad, neither is 
he good, when measured by Christian stan- 
dards of goodness. He lives in ignorance. 
Physical knowledge is unknown to him, and in 
intellectual power he is low down the scale. 
There is in him a basis for intellectual devel- 
opment, that is undeveloped intellectual pow- 
ers, giving him a natural perception of truth 
when stated in its plainest forms, but for this 
he cares nothing. This soul does however 
possess one thing, which is essential to all 
spiritual development. That is belief in the 
existence of its Creator. This belief is fixed 
and unchangeable. It has led this soul to 
worship according to its knowledge, and wor- 
ship has led it to strive to imitate, and become 
like the object of its worship. That object is 
its ideal of perfection, and through its worship 
and its efforts, it has approached its ideal. 
To many souls its ideal would itself be low, 
and in as much as the worshiper can never 
become perfect as his ideal, it may happen 
that this soul is very much lower than its own 
ideal, and yet be all that it can be vwth the 
light and knowledge which it posseses. If the 
soul with which I started before were to judge 
this soul, he would pronounce it an abomina- 



178 THE CONTINUITY OF 

tion upon the earth unfitted for human life and 
doubly unfitted for spiritual existence. Such 
judgment might also be accepted by many lov- 
ing worshipers of our Creator, who measure 
men by their own standards and relatively to 
their own ideal, forgetful that that which is 
required of them is not required of him to 
whom less knowledge and less light has been 
given. Ask this soul what is its hope, and it 
will answer; "That I may see and worship Him 
who made me; that I may hear my Redeemer 
speak to me; that I may know Jesus as his 
disciples knew him; that I may walk with 
him in the beautiful land where he lives now. 
All this I hope for and this I believe he will 
give unto me." Blessed hope; thrice blessed 
belief. Beyond human comprehension do such 
a hope and such a belief, bless their posses- 
sors. Ask this soul whence this hope and 
what the foundation for this belief, and he 
will answer; "The hope I have always had, I 
cannot remember when it came to me, for I 
cannot remember when I did not have it, but 
the belief came when I got religion," Tell us 
then what is religion, and how you got it. 
"This is religion, that you feel within your 
heart, that you love God, and that God loves 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 179 

you. I always thought that I loved Him but 
I never knew it till I got religion, then it 
was so plain to me. Something seemed to 
just tell me how loving God is, and it made 
me feel as if I just knew how Jesus loved his 
disciples, when he was with them, and then 
I felt that I just knew that he loves me just 
as well as he loved them. Oh ! how happy 
this made me feel; then I knew that this was 
religion." Thus would this child of God tell 
us of what was to him a living truth wholly 
incomprehensible to those who know it not. 
Lest I be misunderstood in the expression that 
none less perfect than this soul can enter the 
spiritual state called Heaven, I must say that 
belief does not always spring from such expe- 
rience. It may become fixed and unshaken 
without it; and the essential part of this soul's 
preparation is its belief, not that which it calls 
its religion. Many possess this belief as firmly 
founded and as unwavering, as I have depicted 
it in this soul, and yet are devoid of that ex- 
perience to which he attributes his belief. 
This experience is a blessed gift to those who 
seek and find it, and there exists no soul on 
earth but can attain it, by persistent and de- 
termined seeking. It however adds nothing to 



180 THE CONTINUITY OF 

the soul's fitness for the spiritual state I now 
describe, other than to establish and forever 
fix this belief beyond the shadow of a doubt. 
For this and for the joy it brings it should be 
the undying hope of every soul which has it 
not, that it might attain it in its human life. 
It was not given to me in my human life to 
thus know my Creator's love, and yet without 
it my belief on that Creator, and in his bles- 
sed Son, as my Savior and my God, never 
failed me, and never was stronger than when I 
knew that I was dying. But as I now know 
the truth, and read the knowledge that came 
to him to whom I give these thoughts, out of 
the agony of that lonely hour which he spent 
in a stable, with none but God to aid him, I 
would willingly give all my human life, and 
all the joy it brought me, in exchange for such 
an hour and such a triumph of the spiritual 
nature. If you my reader lack as I lacked this 
blessed knowledge, you can acquire it as he 
acquired it. 

Now to return to the soul which serves as 
my illustration of these spiritual truths. It 
lives and dies in this simple confiding belief. 
It enters spiritual existence and is disappoint- 
ed. There is no great white throne, no reali- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 181 

zation of its ideas of personal worship; no 
walking with its Savior, as he walked with 
his disciples on earth; no sense of physical 
existence and of physical surroundings, which 
it had pictured, and for which it had so fondly 
hoped. But it is not alone. Loving souls 
whose wisdom is greater than its own, begin 
to teach it truth as it can bear the truth; just 
as I began on earth with one, just as I am be- 
ginning now. It has entered spirital existence 
with physical conceptions alone, of that exist- 
ence. These must be changed gradually to 
spiritual conceptions of spiritual truth. There 
is danger to this soul in its disappointment. 
It tries hard to understand why it was deceived 
in earth, why God's revelation led it to believe, 
that there was a great white throne upon which 
our Creator sat, and was worshiped; why it 
was led to believe in harps, and crowns, in 
wings and robes of azure brightness; why 
heaven was made so real and now is so hidden. 
This is the supreme trial of its belief. This 
trial safely passed, this soul is safe; not safe 
beyond the possibility of sin, but safe because 
it desires not to disobey. To aid this soul in 
this its greatest trial is the work of all who 
love their fellow creatures; and none can en- 



182 THE CONTINUITY OF 

ter Heaven who have not this love. It is first 
instructed in the nature of its new existence. 
It is shown how it is impossible that it should 
longer know any material thing or realize the 
hopes of Heaven which it had built up in hu- 
man life. It is shown that in its human life 
it was impossible that it should have compre- 
hended its spiritual existence, and that be- 
cause it could not then comprehend it, in its 
very truth, that truth was presented to it through 
figurative teaching; that it mistook the figure 
for the truth, and upon these figures built hopes 
that could not be realized. -That because the 
Creator was powerless, because of self limita- 
tion to reach it in any other way, he had re- 
vealed his truth in this manner; that now it 
must drop the figure and seek to know what 
the figure represents. Thus it is led from 
thought to thought, until it begins to realize 
that the ultimate truth lies far behind the fig- 
ure which it had supposed was the truth. This 
is its first step upwards and its first experience 
of joy resulting from spiritual understanding. 
Having once known this joy in its lowest de- 
gree, it seeks eagerly to know its source, and 
this is the lesson that is then taught it. Joy 
is the result of spiritual understanding. In 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 183 

earth your understanding was limited, and your 
joy was equally limited. Now you are begin- 
ning to comprehend spiritual existence, as it 
is by experiencing it, and with this increase of 
knowledge is your joy increased, therefore you 
must accept the truth that the source of joy is 
spiritual understanding. Seek therefore spir- 
itual understanding that your joy may be mag- 
nified. This soul eagerly does this, and in 
seeking it there is revealed to it little by little, 
truths which it could not have comprehended 
in human life, and which, if they had been 
given to it then as now, would have been re- 
jected by it. Therefore in that which some 
might term its deception in human life is now 
revealed to it the eternal love of its Creator. 
Another step has been taken and it now 
comprehends dimly that eternal love revealed 
through that which deceived it. Plainer proof 
of that love is not possible to any creature, 
when the effect of and reason for such deception 
has been made known to it. Apply this truth 
form the infancy of your life throughout its 
unending existence, and this is forever true. 
Those you love most dearly you deceive most 
eagerly, when there is a reason for such decep- 
tion and its effect, the happiness of the one 



184 THE CONTINUITY OF 

you deceive and love. When human love uses 
such means to secure happiness to those upon 
whom it is most ardently bestowed, think you 
that divine love does not do likewise? Are 
not human love and spiritual love the shadow 
of that greater love, and is not the shadow 
like unto that which casts it? If you call this 
rhetoric and deny its logic, I declare it to be 
truth, whatever else it maybe. The soul whom 
we follow now realizes dimly its Creator's 
eternal love, and this makes its joy greater 
than in its first stage of knowledge. Its course 
is now onward in spiritual development, and 
with those who have far outgrown it to guide 
its thought it progresses and ever will progress 
toward that pefection which is unattainable; 
that perfection which it will ever approach 
and will never reach. Its happy life is now 
before it as it wills to make it. If it is satis- 
fied with a low degree of happiness, it may so 
rest, but it must forever know, that beyond 
lies greater joy which alone requires greater 
spiritual knowledge to acquire. This is that 
spiritual state which is called Heaven, and 
which is Heaven in very truth to those who 
enter it. 

To enter such a Heaven as this was man ere- 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 185 

ated; to him was given the power to defeat 
the purpose of his creation or to fulfill it. If 
his choice is to defeat it, then the greatest 
love that can be manifested toward such soul, 
is to take from it all power to know spiritual 
truth; that it may never know what its great 
loss has been; that it may never know the 
love it has cast off. Thus it was created, and 
this is revealed to all who know that love. 
There is therefore in Hell no knowledge of 
that love, which makes its torments bearable, 
which renders existence in it possible and 
which is no less for those who enter it than 
for those who escape it. God loves all his 
creatures; they are his own. To those who 
obey him that love is revealed, from those who 
disobey it is concealed. Therefore men say 
that he loves the one and is angry with the 
other, and in his ignorance this is the limit 
of man's power to comprehend his Creator. 
Therefore to meet the necessity of this igno- 
rance of man, has God revealed the knowledge 
of the withdrawal of his love, from those who 
disobey by the figurative use of the expressions 
vengeance, anger, displeasure. Such is their 
meaning, yet in this sense they cannot mean 
less to those who suffer the withdrawal of the 



186 



•THE CONTINUITY OF 



knowledge of that love. I ask of those who 
have followed my thoughts to this conclusion, 
whether I have wronged you in dispelling your 
thoughts of God's anger against those who sin. 
Is it not enough that you know his love, and 
does it not increase your love to think of him 
as loving all those who must live in darkness 
forever, equally as he loves you? Can you 
hate them? Can you be angry with them? 
Would you not lessen their sorrows if it was 
in your power to do it? Would you not save 
them from their wretched state if it were pos- 
sible thai you could doit? Answer these ques- 
tions as you have the power to do it, and then 
answer me, whether the God you worship has 
less of love, less of compassion, less of ten- 
derness for his creatures, than you have for 
those whom he has created Can you there- 
fore realize that I speak truth in the words 
with which I close these thoughts? My Crea- 
tor loves me because I am his creature. He 
loves no other creature less or more than he 
loves me. His love is revealed to me through 
my obedience to his commands. His love is 
concealed from those who disobey his com- 
mands, and it is thus concealed that their suf- 
fering may be lessened. 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 187 

Thy works praise Thee 0/ my God. They 
manifest thy love eternal and everlasting, 
bestowed alike on those in spiritual darkness, 
and in spiritual light, and for this I praise thy 
Holy Name in Heaven, as in earth it should 
be praised, through the worship of the triune 
one, my Father, my Redeemer, my Comforter, 
Amen. 



188 THE CONTINUITY OF 



APPENDIX. 

The first sentence received by me through 
this source was given upon the evening of No- 
vember 16th, 1874. It had no recognized 
meaning or application, and was, "Come light 
our home." 

Of that which followed I have made the fol- 
lowing selections for the purpose of illustra- 
tion, as mentioned in the body of this book. 

November 19, 1874. "If you would become 
God like ask for wisdom." "You profit by all 
the voices from the spirit land." 

November 20, 1874. "You must crown your 
lives with beautiful deeds, for yourselves, and 
all humanity." "Will you come with willing 
hearts to the fountain of life?" What is the 
fountain of life? "Wisdom." 

November 22, 1874. "Your highest intellec- 
tual joy, is but the shadow of your lesser joy 
in the bright spirit land." 

November 25, 1874. "Every high aspiration 
places a jewel in your crown of life." "Live 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 189 

high in your ..intellectual sphere." "God has 
made the world beautiful for your instruction." 
"You expect to find Heaven hereafter, but you 
will not find it; it is in your own souls. " "Let 
the windows of your souls be open that the 
light may shine out upon all." 

November 26, 1874. "You have high men- 
tal powers; cultivate and use them as stepping 
stones, to high and noble purposes." "The 
right use of mental powers is the way to 
knowledge. " 

November 28, 1874. "Remember dear friends, 
that the noblest lives are made up of little 
deeds; then look well to your small acts." 

November 29, 1874. "At the lifting of the 
veil, your soul shall be filled with light." "A 
brighter light awaits you in the windows of 
this home." 

December 5, 1874. "All high hopes and 
pure desires, place you in the path that leads 
to the throne of wisdom." 

December 10, 1874. "Keep your hearts full 
of love and your lives pure, and the world 
will be better for your having lived." 

December 12, 1874. "Treasure God's smiles, 
and look upon them in seasons of grief; they 
will sweeten all your sorrows, and lead you to 



190 THE CONTINUITY OF 

a higher life." "Be gentle in your dealings 
with your fellow men." "Elevate your minds 
that you may receive Divine teaching." 

May 2, 1875. "God Most High! Grant us 
now thy wisdom, that we love thee, first and 
above all. Know not our sins against us 
longer. More plenteous mercy show to us thy 
children. To a lost soul wilt thou be gracious 
in thy goodness. Most High God! look with 
love upon thy worshipers, now addressing 
thy throne, like us, so that we may rest in 
thy love, till from thy throne, we see thee 
most glorious. Wilt thou inspire us with 
Thine own most holy Self, that we -may for- 
ever approach thy truth with humbleness and 
earnestness. Love now thy children who in 
earth life rest, for they walk in darkness and 
ignorance. Most High God! may thy light 
break upon their darkened minds. Deep are 
the ways in which thou movest and past find- 
ing out. Love us in our ignorance most boun- 
teously. Stay not thy loving hand in this the 
time of our needs and grant us thy wisdom 
to-day. Love with us all thy children, and 
stay not thy goodness. Holy God, solemn are 
thy courts to good spirits and humble mor- 
tals. How lost in love mortals should be that 



HUMAN AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 191 

thou noticest them. Most High God! stay 
not death, it is the friend of man and leads 
him to a better land. Now God grant thy 
blessings upon us all, spirits and mortals, 
Amen." 

April i, 1877. "Diligence is knowledge; 
would you be more wise, then be more dili- 
gent." 



ONE COPY HECL 
MAY 23 1904 










A f i //'V -^/k A-^AV-^ A';-,r- c //AAji--^/v ''/■■'• v-C^: ''% ■ ' '//'''''■'' —vV ) -^ \LT"~V'.£, / , /A 









Ci*' ^Sk ^> w$ -^I?^kF & ■' * ^ - l ' "' "* ' - 

i ;,i *^^saii^^nv^S^^ ;; ni> , ' , F^Sl *<vl'V^C 'A -,i. '* Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. . 
w/ 1 ^-^^^ S'l^V^W^r' 'Wt-^^sftiA yVJ^.'v A J*V^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
<&!•/ Y ' f 0'^^W'^\ ^fe^C*- ' ,/ ' /f- -^[% ^'b jpE^V^B'.' / Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

M0(0^^'^^^^W^9M£i Preservation-Technologies ' 

^^d^^^/"' ' i'l ' ^^^"^-^V\V 2fc" M V'~-^^ S ^''V?![ A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

Wi-\' : '*/i/'iS< V'IJ^Ia' ' f't'siW^ Y/?^^\&&$-*& /"'f'-nW 111 Thomson Park Drive 



\A 



? 



Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-211' 



